Fallen Saints
by ArwenGreenEyes
Summary: Clare McDonough is the type of girl who has always taken care of herself. But when a twist of fate sends her two brothers with haunted pasts, will she be able to take care of them too? Rated for language.
1. Discovery

Clare always walked home by herself. She didn't much mind the streets of Boston, even when it was after dark and more than shadows lurked in the alleys. She let the lustful glances of half-drunk men roll off her body like rain; it didn't bother her, for she knew exactly what she was worth and what she was doing in the world. It was a wonderful feeling, to be so sure of herself—but nevertheless, she carried pepper-spray in the pocket of her coat and a slim little pistol in the bottom of her purse.

It was too soon after dusk to be cold. The still-warm night air caressed her cheek as she strode briskly along, her walk strong and sure. Her grey eyes took in every detail of her surroundings without flickering or flinching, giving no sign of her alert demeanor. She absently traced the crucifix of the rosary that nestled in her pocket, going over her shopping list and the dinner menu in her mind. _Not very important, if you ask me,_ contributed a small voice in her ear. _Cooking for one isn't much trouble anytime. You can have whatever you damn well please and no-one would care. No mother to scold you for eating dessert first,_ it pointed out wickedly. Clare pursed her lips and made a mental note to find that annoying little part of her mind responsible and shut it off.

The hum of an engine purred behind her. It was a black SUV, windows tinted, license-plate sprayed over. She knew better than to look directly at it; instead she turned and walked up the steps of an apartment building, taking the steps two at a time until she was two flights up. Clare stood, and listened, and waited, swinging her purse a little to feel the weight of the gun. God, that was the one thing she hated about Boston, the damn mobs and gangs and whoever else felt like getting some guns and shooting each other. But though she'd heard about them, and seen their cars, her heart hammered in her ears as she heard the sound of car doors opening and closing, and the hydraulic hiss of the back trunk being opened. She shrank against the wall and opened her purse as there came muffled speech and what sounded like a groan of pain. Then there were two _pops_, like a soda can being opened…and the sound of something heavy dragging across the pavement. Clare took her pistol and pressed her eyes shut, listening with every fiber of her being. _Please don't let them come in here…please don't let them find me…Mary, Mother of God, please don't let them find me…_ And she was praying the rosary with all her strength, gun cocked, breath coming fast. There were heavy footsteps, and a flurry of foreign words—Italian or Spanish, she couldn't be sure. It still froze her blood. The footsteps paused—she saw a shadow twist around the corner—and then there was the blessed sound of a car revving, a door closing, and the engine growling away down the street.

"Thank you Mary, Mother of Jesus," she whispered, taking out her crucifix and kissing it. Just as a precaution, she slipped the pistol into her pocket and ventured forth nonchalantly.

Dear God. She stopped.

There was blood on the pavement, a small splotch of it, more in the street, in the gutter. A drop here…a brush of it there…like a trail of breadcrumbs. Her spine chilled. _Leave it be, leave it be, leave it be_, that small voice in her head whispered frantically, terrified. But she took a step toward the alley, horrified and fascinated. The shadows were dark…another step…there.

"Jesus Christ," she said in a sort of supplication, and put her hand against the brick wall.

Two figures. Blood. One of them was speaking, bending over the other, crying out in a strange mix of tongues. She couldn't understand him. She couldn't understand _this_. But something compelled her. She took another step closer.

"Fucking hell, Conn," the man gasped. His hands and chest were covered in blood, and he bent over a prone figure. The man on the ground was pale even in the shadows. "Fuck. Fuck."

All at once Clare stepped forward. "Let me help," she said, holding up her hands to show she was unarmed. "Please, let me help." She didn't know why she felt this strange surge of protectiveness and sorrow and pity but it overwhelmed her. She dropped to her knees, fighting the urge to gag.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Connor, wake up," the man pleaded. "Don't do this to me, fuck, oh fuck..." He trailed off, breathing hard.

"Move." He let her push him aside and she went to work, hands shaking, her mind blazing through every first aid lesson she'd ever learned. No bullet holes, but no pulse...his skin was still warm...and she saw the rings of bruises around his throat. "Okay," she said. "Okay, listen to me." The darker-haired man looked at her with glazing eyes, his hands shaking. "Do you know CPR?" He hazily shook his head. "All right then. Here." She pressed her cell phone into his bloody hand. "Look, hold down the number 2 button and when someone answers, hold the phone up so I can talk." With that she concentrated on the second brother--somehow she knew. They were brothers. Maybe twins. She placed her hands on the man's chest, locked her elbows, counting out the compressions.

_Okay, Miss Hotshot, you have all the answers. You used to be a lifeguard in the eleventh grade. _She fiercely shoved away her doubts, giving him two long breaths._ Best kiss you've had in a month, kid_, she thought to herself. But it wasn't her fault that all the men she met were either assholes or married. Or just taken out by the mob.

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A/N: This is my first fanfic, so please be gentle! Any comments and/or suggestions are much appreciated!


	2. An Offer

"It's ringing," the darker-haired brother panted, holding out the bloodied phone. Clare listened to the tone, pumping at the smaller brother's chest. Connor, she thought his name was. "Come on, Connor," she muttered, tilting his chin back.

And then, all at once, Connor bucked under her hands, gasping, and a voice crackled out from her cell phone. Clare caught the phone as the dark-haired man fell on his brother in a fit of reckless, maniacal joy, ruffling his hair and swearing and touching his face and hands. She smiled involuntarily, then snapped back to reality when the voice came from her phone again.

"Hell-oo-oo."

"Christian!" She'd recognize that sing-song greeting anywhere. "Listen up, I need you to do me a favor."

"Oh, for God's sakes, Clare, I am _not_ coming all the way over to the boutique to look at your ass in that Vera Wang dress you've been eyeing for the past six months, we've done this three times already—"

"Christian."

"—and you know what I'll say anyway, my opinion doesn't change, sweetie, your figure deserves a sexier designer—"

"Christian," she said again.

"—tell you what, why don't I hop over to seventh street and show you a dress that would look absolutely _gorgeous_ on you, and I know the pair of Manolo heels to go with—"

"_Christian!" _Clare interrupted, a hint of exasperation in her voice.

"What?" asked Christian huffily, peeved at being interrupted.

"Can you please stop being so damn gay for a minute and listen to me?" she asked. The dark-haired brother looked up at her and raised his eyebrows. He said something to his brother in a language that was achingly familiar. Gaelic. That's what it was. "I need you to come pick me up. I was walking home from work and I—ran into some problems."

"Oh God, did your heel break?" Christian gasped. "Honey, just give me your street number."

Clare gave it to him. "And bring a first aid kit," she added. "I—um—scraped my knee when I fell."

"You fell? Oh, sweetie, you just keep your chin up and I'll be _right_ there."

"Okay, thanks, Christian." She hung up the phone and tucked it back into her purse only to realize that both brothers were staring at her with a mixture of amusement and distrust.

"That's who ye call in an emergency?" the dark-haired brother asked skeptically.

"Actually, you're right." Clare nodded and got out her phone again. "You definitely need an ambulance." She flipped open the phone only to have it snapped shut by two calloused hands.

"No hospitals."

"Then don't question who I call," she retorted. "I just saved your asses."

"Oh, did ye now?"

"Of course I did," she replied firmly. "And _don't_ try to get up," she continued, placing a restraining hand on Connor's chest. He grimaced at her.

"Lyin' here in the fuckin' street, for God's fuckin' sake," he muttered hoarsely, rubbing at his throat weakly.

"Just rest," Clare ordered. "And you," she said, turning on the darker-haired one. "No more of that lip. Let me see where all this blood is from." As an afterthought she added, "My name is Clare."

"Connor," said the brother on the ground.

"Murphy," said the darker-haired one. He winced as she prodded at a patch of blood on his chest. "Fuckin' charmed, I'm sure." As she continued with her examination, he protested, "Most o' the blood en't mine."

"You're lying out of your ass," Clare muttered as she leaned closer to inspect a gash on Murphy's forehead. "I think your nose is broken."

"Nah," contributed Connor, "he's just fuckin' ugly."

"Ye're gonna be ugly when I'm done with ye," replied Murphy. "Ow, that hurts, woman."

"Stop being such a baby," scoffed Clare. "All right, unless I missed something—which I probably did—you'll be fine for a few hours."

"Very reassurin'," commented Murphy dryly.

"Come on, we need to get you two off the street until Christian gets here." She stood and held out a hand to Murphy, who insisted that he was quite fine and got up on his own, making horrible faces and swearing under his breath. They hauled up Connor between the two of them. "All right, there's an apartment building just to the left here. We can sit in the stairwell until Christian comes."

"Fuck," gasped Connor as they moved forward. Murphy grunted in agreement. Yet they managed to hastily maneuver Connor into the stairwell before any passersby got too curious; luckily, there weren't many people on the streets. It was a part of Boston that came alive at night.

"Okay," said Clare. "Murphy—for Christ's sake—!" she yelped as Murphy stumbled and Connor lurched, caught off balance. She instinctively dropped down into a wide-legged stance and took Connor's weight, lowering him down gently. Connor taken care of, she turned to Murphy. "You all right?"

"Just…fuckin…dizzy," Murphy said between gasps.

"Put your head between your knees." Much to her surprise, the Irishman complied and dropped his dark head between his knees. "Just breathe deep…Christian should be here any moment."

"Fuck," came the muffled response. Clare pursed her lips.

"Well, as long as you keep spouting obscenities I'm assuming you're not too badly hurt." She looked up and found Connor looking at her with consideration in his startling blue eyes. "What?"

He just shook his head and rubbed his throat.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity of sitting, waiting, glancing at her watch, checking on Murphy, checking her cell phone, and wondering what the hell she was getting herself into, Clare felt her phone vibrate against her side. "Thank God," she said, flipping the phone open. "Hey…yeah, the apartment building…just come get us…um—yes, us," she said, wincing at her slip of tongue. "But…Christian, trust me, you'll…like it. Think of it as a surprise." She grinned as Connor looked sharply at her. "Okay, all right…just announce yourself…they're a little jumpy."

"Jumpy? You think I'm fuckin' jumpy _now _ and you're gonna fuckin hand us over to a queer? Fuckin' hell!" Murphy raised his head from his knees. "Had 'nough to do with _that_…"

"I'm not _handing you over_," Clare rebutted, stabbing the air with her imaginary quotation marks. "He's _helping_ to save your asses, so you'd _better_ be civil or I'll just leave you here for the Italian guys to pick up."

At the her mention of the mobsters, Connor seized her arm and Murphy muttered more obscenities into his knees. Connor's blue eyes searched her face piercingly.

"Did ye see 'em?" he asked intensely, his brogue thickening as he leaned forward with emotion.

"No. Ow."

His grip was surprisingly strong for a man that had been technically dead mere minutes before.

"Did they see you?"

"No—I hid in here—for Pete's sake, let _go_ of me." But he held her arm and held her gaze.

"Listen ta me, Clare, if they saw ye, if helpin' us is puttin' ye in danger—"

"Which it is any fuckin' way ye look at it," contributed Murphy.

"—then just leave, right now. Ye've helped us enough. We can take it from here."

"_You_ can take it from here?" Clare glared at him, her grey eyes steely. He released her arm. "I think you're overestimating yourselves. You're not immortal. And you're sure as hell in no condition to go anywhere except home with me."

"Ye think they'll just let us go?" Connor asked, his voice growing hoarser with every word. He swallowed hard and rubbed at the bruises on his neck.

"Stop talking. It's hurting your throat," Clare said.

"Woman," Murphy said, "_your_ fuckin' talk is hurting _my_ fuckin' head."

"Well, aren't you a little cranky," Clare said caustically, but her hands were gentle as she laid them on Murphy's forehead. He didn't flinch away from her touch. "Let me see. You've got a nasty knot on your skull, here." He grunted.

"Ye shouldn't help us," Connor began again. Clare ignored him. "It's too dangerous. Ye don't understand."

"No, what _you_ don't understand is that you don't have a choice," snapped Clare.

"Half the fuckin' city will be knockin on your door—"

"Knock-kno-ock!" sang out a very cheerful male voice. "The queer is here!"

"Christian!" Clare exclaimed in relief. The cavalry had arrived. Christian rounded the corner and immediately gave her a hug, blatantly inspecting her shoes.

"You liar, you're not even wearing heels," he said, putting his hands on his low-rider clad hips. Then he looked over Clare's shoulder and saw the bloodied, dirtied twins. His face lit up. "Clare, don't _tell _me you've been picking up man-candy off the streets again. They're _dirty_," he said devilishly. "And there's _two _of them. You know what that means—"

"Just help me get them to the car," Clare said, resisting the smile tugging at her lips. Connor and Murphy looked up at her in supplication. In the end she offered them both a hand, and they accepted.

"No fair," pouted Christian. "It's _supposed_ to be one for you and one for me, that's what I _meant_…"

"Go unlock the car," grinned Clare. With Connor on one side and Murphy on the other, she carefully guided them out across the sidewalk and to the waiting Lexus. Murphy slid across the back seat as Christian flounced around the front of the car. Clare helped Connor in and scooted in beside him.

"Nice car," commented Connor wryly.

"Yes, I know," agreed Christian. "Just try not to bleed on the seats too much, honey. They're real leather."

Connor raised his eyebrow at Clare and she shrugged. The engine purred into life and the car swung out into the street.

Clare watched the apartment building and alleyway fade from the rearview mirror. _And away we go._


	3. Home Sweet Home

They sat in silence as Christian guided the car through the darkening streets, one hand draped lazily over the steering wheel as he regaled them with the events of his day.

"And you know what I had to say to _that_—I said honey, if you were forty pounds lighter and had Brazilian boobs, _maybe_ that dress would work on you, just _maybe._ And, Clare, you would not _believe _ the look she gave me, that narcissistic bitch. She thinks that because her daddy has a million bucks and her husband screws around that makes her something worth looking at." Christian sniffed daintily as he manuevered around a sleek black Bentley in the turning lane.

Clare murmured a vague agreement, glancing at Connor and Murphy. Connor's head lolled—he seemed to be falling asleep; and rightly so, she thought, they'd had an eventful day even by her standards. Murphy had his chin propped up on his fist, staring out the window. He turned to her with a small frown. "You takin' us to some fuckin' swank hotel?"

She smiled. "Nah. Just home."

Murphy shook his head and looked back out the window, his other hand going to his nose and touching it gingerly, as though assessing the damage. They hit a pothole and Connor jerked awake with a little groan of protest. He turned to Murphy, raising his eyebrows. Murphy raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. Connor shook his head slightly and leaned back. Clare watched the exchange with fascination—they seemed to have some sort of telepathic connection. It was a little eerie, really, until she remembered that they were twins and this was supposed to be normal for twins. Or so she'd heard. But then again, what about Connor and Murphy was exactly normal? She studied them covertly—chiseled features, not quite drop-dead gorgeous but nearly so, more rugged than handsome, but still enough to make a girl's heart squeeze—though not hers, never hers—and then, beneath the blood there were those eyes, eyes that could laugh and scold and caress. Though she'd only known them for inside of an hour, Clare felt…a bond. Then she shook herself. No. She didn't feel anything. She was only doing…she was only doing what she had been trained to do.

"All right?"

She jumped slightly and turned to meet Connor's piercing blue gaze. "Why wouldn't I be?" she retorted. "You're the one who died today."

One eyebrow raised slightly. "And that means ye can't be a little shaken up?"

Clare raised her chin, eyes flashing. "I'm fine."

Connor nodded. "All right then."

Christian slowed the car smoothly in front of a large brick house with a small but immaculately manicured front lawn and an iron-wrought fence circling a brick walkway. Connor whistled softly and Murphy turned to her with a wicked grin. " 'Just home,'eh?"

She smiled. "I meant what I said and I said what I meant—"

"An elephant's faithful one hundred percent," finished Connor, surprising a laugh out of her.

"Look who's a closet Dr. Suess fan,"she remarked, stifling another laugh at the look on Murphy's face.

"Closet? Did someone say something about a closet?" Christian whipped the keys out of the ignition and turned around. "Because honey, if you're in the Closet, the one with a capital C, you _know_ I will get you out of there quicker than—"

"Christian, can it and help me get them inside," Clare said, putting her hand over Christian's mouth. He gave her a devilish look and licked her palm. "Eeew. Gross." She wiped her hand on his shirt.

"Clare! Not my Armani!" he wailed.

"You deserve it, you hand-licker," she retorted.

"Now _that_ was a stingin' insult," remarked Murphy.

"Shut up, invalid."

"Ouch," Christian said, raising his eyebrows at Murphy.

Then Clare noticed that Connor was looking decidedly pale. "All right, seriously, inside. Christian, you help Murphy." She didn't need to tell Christian to behave himself; even he knew when to heed her "business voice."

"Come on then," she said, opening her door and touching Connor's arm.

"Someone might see us," he said softly.

"Believe me, much stranger things have been seen around this part of town. You wouldn't believe the secrets here."

He took her offered hand and slid out of the car, but when he stood up his knees buckled. Clare immediately tucked herself under his shoulder and braced him up firmly. "Come on, I've got you."

He grunted. "It's a long fall from grace."

She wrinkled her nose at his enigmatic comment but nevertheless, they hobbled and hitched their way to the front door of the brick house. Christian had already unlocked the door and helped Murphy inside; Clare pushed the door open and half-lifted Connor over the doorstep. Christ, he was heavy. She kicked the door shut behind them.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," breathed Connor, looking about at the comfortably furnished home. "Ye must be fuckin' rich."

Clare felt her ears burning. Very attractive, she was sure. "Um. Not really. Here, let's get you to the couch."

Christian had laid a thick padding of towels on the couches; Murphy reclined on one already and she helped Connor into the other one. "Although there is one rule in this house…shoes off!" She tugged at Connor's shoes. He grimaced at her. She turned to Murphy but he was already struggling with his, and she bent to help him.

"Christ, woman, I can take off me own damn shoes," he growled, but let her finish untying them, leaning back tiredly.

"Okay, I'll be right back," she reassured them. Murphy grunted at her and Connor flashed her a wobbly thumbs-up before allowing his arm to flop back down onto the couch. She smiled. Somehow, even though she was stained with blood and had been scared half to death and now had two fugitives ruining her leather couches, she was happier than she had been in years.


	4. A Decision

a/n: sorry it took so long to update, school and everything has kept me buuuusy! but i hope this chapter makes the wait worth it...and remember, reviewsfaster updates!!

"Okay, I'll be right back—Christian, hot water and towels, please," Clare said, moving with an authoritative, business-like air that graced her tall, lean frame with a strange sort of toughness about it. Connor furrowed his brow as he tried to place it, but gave up when she left the room and that elusive feeling evaporated.

"Oh, I'm all over it," Christian replied, pausing to wink at Murphy before making his exit into the kitchen. Murphy sighed but then broke into a chuckle as he caught Connor's eye.

"Christ, why d'we always get stuck with the queers?" he said in a low voice, grinning.

Clare was returning to the room with her kit when she heard the brothers talking in low voices. She paused at the threshold, watching them. They were so…together. She couldn't think of the right word. They just fit. Like jigsaw pieces. Like twins were supposed to fit. Then Connor laughed at something Murphy had said, and the end of his laugh trailed off into a surprised, ragged gasp.

"Connor?" Murphy was pushing himself up, getting ready to heave himself across the distance between him and his twin, but Clare gave him a cursory shove back down onto the couch and a glare that clearly said, _Stay put._ In one fluid motion she had her kit up on the table, the catches undone and the kit open, her fingers nimbly sorting through the compartments until she found the object of her search. Ripping the plastic cover off, she slipped the oxygen mask over Connor's face and pressed two fingers below his jaw. "Connor," she said, "listen to me, just try to breathe deeply. Slow it down."

Her instructions seemed to have no effect on Connor's frenzied, panicked breaths. "Connor?" Murphy said again, this time real concern in his voice. Christian returned with the hot water and towels and knew better than to add to the chaos of Clare trying to calm one brother and chastise the other.

"Christian," Clare said, "take Murphy to the kitchen, please." Her voice was the epitome of sensibility.

"But, fuck—_fuck_—" Murphy swore as Christian gently but firmly lifted him under the arms and escorted him from the room.

Connor's eyes followed Murphy from the room.

"Connor," Clare said. "Stay right here with me, okay?"

His eyes were glazing over. Clare took a deep breath, took another—_you can handle this, you were trained for this_. Then another small part of her mind reminded her, _This is the training you've tried so hard to forget_._ Are you going to make him pay for it?_

"No," she muttered. Then, louder, "No, Connor, you're going to listen to me." Her voice was firm, almost harsh. "Listen. To. Me. Focus, right here." She stopped taking his pulse and took his chin in her hand. His blue eyes opened a little wider as she leaned in close. "Slow. Right with me. Here. I'm breathing with you, all right?"

The fog on the oxygen mask wavered, then steadied—still fast, but slowing.

"Good. That's the way. Good." She kept eye contact until his heaving chest calmed and the hazy look of panic left his face. Then she inspected him, running her eyes expertly over his body. It looked like most of the damage was to his torso—and she could see the bruised imprint of a thin rope or wire about his neck. She suppressed an involuntary shudder. After a few moments, she gently removed the oxygen mask and laid it on the table. "Better?"

He quirked half a smile in response.

"All right now, I need to get your shirt off," she said.

"Oy, Conn, I knew she couldn't resist ye!" called Murphy from the kitchen. Connor's eyes sparked and he looked as if he wanted to voice a retort but he contented himself with rolling his eyes.

"Quiet down in there, Murphy, or I'll let Christian have the dubious honors of undressing _you_," Clare replied saucily.

"Oh, _can_ I?" asked an obviously excited Christian breathlessly. There was the sound of someone hastily vacating their chair—Murphy or Christian, Clare couldn't tell. She didn't answer, but smiled to herself as she turned back to Connor. She was met by the full force of his blue eyes, now studying her without reserve, and for a moment her neck tingled but then she cleared her throat and fixed him with a business-like eye.

"Your shirt," she said. "Can you get it off by yourself?"

"Yes," he said hoarsely. "Fuck," he muttered as he moved. Clare tensed but forced herself to sit back as he struggled with his black t-shirt. He was holding his breath as he eased it up over his ribs and then he stopped, wincing, as he tried to extend his arms. "Fuck."

"Here, let me help," she said quietly, knowing it rankled his pride even though he hid it well. With a bit of careful maneuvering she got the shirt up and over his head—she noted that he bit back a sound when the shirt stretched his arms upward. Then it was her turn to bite back a moan of sympathy when she saw his battered body, the bruises marring his ribs and chest and the blood coalescing above his collarbone, the thin white lines of old scars and the angry red weals of new ones.

"Did they do this to you?" she asked, a fierce anger welling up behind her words. He didn't answer her and wouldn't meet her eyes.

"It's not as bad as it looks," he said finally. She laid a finger gently on his ribs and he tensed. There were other things she wanted to say but she held them back and instead pulled on a pair of gloves from the medical kit.

"Can I come back in? Or am I banished forever fuckin' more?" came Murphy's voice. "Oy—you—no, thanks I don't need a fuckin' physical—Jesus fuckin' Christ--"

"Let me poor brother in," murmured Connor.

"I could be merciless and leave him to the tender ministrations of Christian," Clare replied, slowly feeling Connor's ribs. He jerked when she touched a broad black bruise on his left side. "Hold still." Connor closed his eyes and his breathing quickened again as she explored the rest of his ribs. "All right, Murphy, you can come back, but only if you can get your brother to stay still." Murphy was at her side like a shot. She spared him a glance. "That was amazingly quick for an invalid."

"Yes, well, ah—let's just say the motivation was right—"

Christian brought the bowl of hot water and cloths back into the living room. "Why don't I get to take off someone's shirt?" he pouted.

Clare sighed. She was starting to regret involving Christian, much as she loved his quirkiness. "Christian, do you have to go to the boutique at all today?" She could feel his gaze on the back of her head and didn't turn around; she knew what he would look like: so heartbreakingly akin to a kicked puppy that she wouldn't be able to maintain her resolve.

"Sure, I should…check on the Manolo order that was supposed to come in yesterday…damn FedEx…" He brushed past her and gave her a ghost of a wobbly smile. "I'll pick up some food on the way home."

"Thank you, Christian," she said sincerely.

"Beer!" said Murphy. "Get us some beer!"

"Shut up," said Clare. "You are not getting beer."

"Ah, fuck," said Murphy. He stood and felt around in his back pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes—then he paused and looked down at Connor, slid the pack back into his pocket and sat back down heavily. "Sorry." He ran his hands through his hair. "I don't really want fuckin' beer."

"I know," Clare said softly. Her fingers were moth-wing light as she investigated a particularly worrisome cut on Connor's side. "Damn it," she swore.

"What?" Murphy leaned in close.

"There's a foreign body in the laceration…I don't know what it is but it sure as hell isn't supposed to be there." Clare shook her head and sat back. "He really needs a hospital."

"No," Connor murmured. "I don't."

"Conn," started Murphy. The worry in his eyes was almost palpable.

Connor opened his eyes with an effort and said to Murphy, "Don't."

Murphy nodded slowly and then gripped his twin's hand. "All right, all right." He turned to Clare. "Do what ye can fer him, everything ye can." He looked at her medical kit. "Ye've enough supplies to last through fuckin world war three…"

Clare nodded. "Come with me to the kitchen for a moment." It was her business-voice.

He followed her and as soon as she was sure they were out of earshot she rounded on him. "Look, yes, I've got training, but I'm—out of practice. And this isn't a hospital. You have to be honest with me right now. Is what would happen to you if you went to a hospital worse than Connor dying?"

Murphy closed his eyes. "Fuck, fuck, don't say that, Jesus fuckin' Christ. Don't…don't say that."

"I'm just being realistic."

"No. No hospitals. He said it himself." Murphy looked at her with pain in his eyes. "I can't go back on me word. Not when I gave it to me brother."

"Fine. Just stay out of my way," Clare said briskly.

It was going to be a long day.


	5. Mixed Feelings

Clare surveyed her kitchen, biting at her nails distractedly as she took in the setup, her mind whirring behind her green eyes. Murphy leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, mouth set in a decidedly unhappy line.

"All right," Clare said finally. "Help me move the table."

"Which one?" asked Murphy, surveying the round white kitchen table, and then, through an open archway, the long, low, polished table in the dining room that was flanked by expensive-looking china cabinets filled with delicately patterned dishes.

"The dining room table. It's lower," replied Clare briskly, starting forward. Murphy caught her arm.

"Wouldn't it be easier just to move him, insteada the whole fuckin' table?" he asked quietly.

"No," she said bluntly, giving him a hard look. He released her arm. "I hope you go to confession often," she continued as she walked to the other side of the table, testing the edge with her fingers. She was able to lever it a few inches off the ground and when she let it go, the table hit the floor again with a very satisfying thump.

"Why d'ye say that?" There was a panicked look to Murphy's eyes, just for an instant, as if she'd caught him off guard. She frowned, then realized the implications of her comment, and wanted to kick herself.

"Oh, no," she said quickly, glancing toward the living room. "I didn't mean—I didn't—all I meant was that you swear. A lot," she added miserably, avoiding his eyes. "It wasn't supposed to mean…" He thought she was saying Connor would die. And her stomach twisted painfully when she saw the raw fear surface in his eyes. She had the feeling that these two men were not used to being helpless. They seemed like they would function like a double-edged sword, normally—cold and hard and twice as deadly as any ordinary human being. But she'd seen the look before—vulnerability and pain were nothing new to her. So she steeled herself and looked up at him again. "Come on. Are you going to help me move this or do I have to wait for Christian to get home?"

Murphy shot her an affronted look, as if to say that she was questioning his masculinity by even suggesting such a travesty. He moved to the other end of the table and with an upward heave they got it off the ground. Clare noted that he winced and paled when the weight of the table came to bear, but he made no complaint and they settled the table right at the side of the couch, about three feet away. As soon as they set it down, Murphy was at Connor's side, his face drawn with worry.

"He's so pale," he murmured, touching his twin's hand. Clare didn't reply; she was already sorting through her fold-out medical kit. It was, in actuality, a black toolbox she had bought from Home Depot for eighteen dollars, when she first moved into the house; she chose it precisely because it had many small compartments and folded in upon itself, like one of those three-tiered cosmetic compacts she'd scoffed at in Macy's.

"Murphy," she said, ripping open a sealed packet of sterilized latex gloves, "this is going to get messy. Are you sure you want to be here?"

He swallowed hard. "Can I help ye, maybe? I'm not afraid of blood." One side of his mouth twisted up in a sort of wry grin. "Seen enough of it not to be skittish."

"That makes two of us," muttered Clare under her breath as she unscrewed the cap of a bottle of rubbing alcohol and wet a large piece of gauze. She handed it to Murphy. "Wipe down the table, if you want to help."

"But it'll bleach it," protested Murphy with a look at the bottle of alcohol; the warning was printed boldly on the label: _Do not use on fabric, upholstery, garments, furniture or table-tops! Contents may permanently discolor materials! _

"I don't care," replied Clare. She didn't even spare a glance for the beautifully glazed oak table as Murphy set his jaw and applied the gauze with a wince. "The table needs to be as sterile as possible before we move him." She pulled on the gloves with soft snapping sounds, her auburn hair falling over her shoulder as she leaned over Connor with a thermometer. "Dammit," she muttered, trying to flick her hair back with a twist of her neck and failing. She looked at her gloves and then glared at her hair in irritation. Then Murphy moved behind her and gently gathered it back, securing it with a rubber band. "Thanks," she said awkwardly, cheeks flaming. Then she returned her focus to Connor, and she had to agree with Murphy: Connor was so pale that the delicate blue and green veins on his eyelids stood out and she could see the fluttering pulse in his neck.

Gently, she slid the thermometer between his cracked lips, but met with his teeth, and despite the fact that he stirred and his eyes fluttered open he didn't seem to understand her when she asked him to open his mouth. So she cleaned the tip of the thermometer and slipped it under his arm. It wouldn't be as accurate, but it would be in the ballpark, and she wasn't interested in pinpointing exact numbers right now. When the thermometer voiced its shrill beep, she withdrew it, looked at the readout and frowned. Murphy watched her intently and tried to glance at the number but she cleared the thermometer and set it aside, picking up a blood-pressure cuff. Murphy scowled at her and muttered something under his breath.

Clare pumped up the cuff and let out the air, watching the little red needle quiver in its glass case. Just as before, she said nothing ,slipping the cuff from Connor's limp arm. She sat silently for a moment. Murphy fidgeted. Then Clare stripped off her gloves, swiftly closed her kit and moved it to the side. She took a blanket from the other couch and folded it neatly, placing it on the near end of the table they had just moved.

"All right," she said to Murphy. "This isn't going to be easy, but I need your help. I can't move him by myself and I need to start as soon as possible."

Murphy nodded wordlessly, his eyes fixed upon Connor's pale face, taking in the dark circles under his eyes that were smudged blue, like bruises, and the way his brother's breath caught in his throat, like it hurt just to survive. "All right. What do you need me to do?" he said softly.

"Take his shoulders and I'll take his legs," said Clare, situating her hands just above Connor's knees, his worn blue jeans rough against her bare fingers. "One…two…three.."

They lifted and slid Connor onto the slick surface of the table. He gasped when they picked him up and jerked when his bare torso came into contact with the cold wood. Murphy leaned down and murmured in his twin's ear as Clare quickly sorted through her medical kit and tossed various supplies out onto the edge of the table, by Connor's feet. She snapped on another pair of gloves and then stopped. Closed her eyes. Willed herself to quell the rush of memories pushing into her thoughts; willed her heart to slow its frantic beating.

"You all right?" came a hoarse voice.

Clare looked down in surprise. Connor squinted up at her, blinking. She glanced at Murphy, who shrugged and said, "You were lookin' kinda faint there for a minute."

She managed to smile a little. "Thanks for your concern, but unfortunately I think you're in worse shape than me right now," she told Connor, who made a face at her.

"So," he said with a slight wince. "What's the damage, doc?"

She hesitated but then he gave her a look and said, "Give it to me straight. No fuckin' sugarcoatin."

"All right," she replied, hoping he couldn't hear the tremor in her voice. "There's something in the cut on your side. I don't know what it is, but I'm guessing it's a shard of glass, or a splinter of wood. Something of that sort. If I don't get it out, it's very likely that an infection will settle in." She took another deep breath. "I don't have anything that will numb it. Topical, that's about it."

Connor gave a little half shrug. "We've done worse."

"I can see that," replied Clare grimly. She'd noted the scars on both the brothers that looked suspiciously like improvised cauterizations—an iron or some other hot tool. She ripped open a few packets and carefully set the glittering instruments on a sheet of fresh gauze. Connor hissed as she carefully dabbed at his side with antiseptic. She murmured between her teeth as she examined the wound. "I can try to put some topical anesthetic around it, but it's too deep to put it on the wound itself safely, and I doubt that numbing the skin around it is going to help awfully much."

"Don't worry about it," Connor said tightly. "Jus' do whatever ya have ta." Murphy's hand tightened on his shoulder.

"All right," Clare said without any more argument. "I need you to stay with me while I do this."

"I'll try," said Connor grimly, but his breath hitched when she pressed gently at a bruised patch on his ribs.

Clare carefully selected her instruments, set her teeth and did what she was trained to do. She tried to shut out Connor's sharp breaths and strained groans, and the pain in Murphy's eyes as he held down his twin. God, there was something in there…it felt like a shard of glass…she closed her eyes, blocking out the sight of the blood, and went purely on touch, feel, the delicate sensory nerves in each of her fingertips tingling as though the instrument was a part of her.

"Clare," said Murphy warningly as Connor stilled, his pale face relaxing from its stiff mask of pain.

"Come on," Clare breathed, her eyes still closed. "Stay with me. Almost got it." She made a quick, sharp movement and then with a hiss of triumph drew out a long, wicked shard of glass from Connor's side. It glinted crimson in the late afternoon light. Hurriedly she dropped it on the table, paying no attention when it fell on the cream-colored carpet and spattered. She pressed a wad of gauze to Connor's side. "Here," she instructed Murphy. "Hold this. Put pressure on it." Her tone brooked no argument—ever since she had picked up her surgical instruments she had become the steely-eyed woman who had dragged them both to her house rather than let them take their chances on the street.

Quickly she checked Connor's pulse, stripping off her bloody gloves, her touch light and efficient. She slipped the oxygen mask over his mouth, gently, after listening to his breathing for a long moment. Murphy pressed the gauze hard against his brother's side, knowing full well the consequences of trying to spare him pain. Clare sat back and breathed a long, low sigh, trying to control her own breathing as the past tense moments impacted her.

"You all right?" asked Murphy.

She opened her eyes and glared at him. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?" she snapped. "Christ, I'm not a damn china doll."

"Well, I knew _that_," muttered Murphy under his breath. He shifted. "How long do I have to hold this thing?"

"Until I say so," replied Clare.

"Fair enough."

She stood, albeit a bit shakily, and watched them for a minute—Murphy, pressing the darkened gauze against pale Connor's side, gazing at his twin's face with unrestrained anxiety and love. Her heart twisted and her mouth thinned angrily. Not now. God, not now. Emotions got in the way. Tripped things up. Screwed people up. She'd disowned hers long ago…until a few hours ago in that dingy back alley. With a sigh of frustration, she picked up her gloves and began to clean up the mess.


	6. A Rude Awakening

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! I know I kind of let this fanfic linger in limbo for a little while but I think I've gotten over my writer's block. So updates should come sooner--there's a pretty simple ratio, too, more reviews equal a faster writing time. Shameless grubbing, I know, but if it gets me some constructive criticism then that's all right. Have fun reading this chap and let me know what you think about our boys' predicament!**

**Arwen**

Clare was throwing her used gloves away and washing her hands in the kitchen sink when Christian let himself through the back door. Even though he hadn't made a sound, she said coolly, "How did that Manolo order go?"

He made a face at her, setting the grocery bags down on the kitchen counter. "You know very well there was no Manolo order, missy. You just wanted me out of the house so you could have your boy-toys to yourself." He pouted.

"Or maybe it's because you can't watch me do anything without having twenty suggestions about how to do it better," she said blandly. "And you should have a Manolo order. Their fall line is surprisingly fresh."

"Leave it to you to talk about blood and fashion in one breath," muttered Christian, fiddling with his hair as he looked at his reflection in the stainless steel of the refrigerator. Clare smiled a little and shrugged.

"Thanks for getting the groceries, though," she added.

"No problem, sweetie," Christian said sincerely, leaping across the kitchen to envelop her in a hug. "Had to go to the 7-Eleven to get them." He shuddered in mock horrow. "Don't ever make me do it again." Then he stepped back. "Now go wash your face and put on some perfume and mascara. I can handle these two for a while."

" I have no doubt about it. But it's almost midnight. I doubt mascara is going to do anything for me." Clare grinned. "Watch Connor—don't move him yet, I want to see how well that laceration in his side will clot before I consider stitches. And don't take any cheek from Murphy."

Christian grinned devilishly. "Well, I might not take any _cheek_, but I can think of some other things I'd take from him." His smile gentled. "Now go to bed, love, and let me take care of them." The affection in his words was negated by a saucy wink.

Clare rolled her eyes and smiled as she walked past him. "Sometimes I don't know how I live with you."

"Because you _loooove_ me," sang Christian from behind her.

"That I do," agreed Clare softly, smiling to herself as she made her way to her bedroom, looking forward to a hot shower and some much needed rest.

The next morning Clare awoke to silence. She frowned and tried to remember why she thought that wasn't normal…and then stiffened when she remembered the events of the past twenty four hours. She slid out of bed silently, padding toward the door—and froze when the doorknob turned slowly, noiselessly. The twins' warning of the previous night, when they were still bloody in an alley, resounded in her mind. Crouching down into a practiced fighter's stance, she moved to the side, at a forty-five degree angle to the door, and waited, her eyes sharp as shards of glass.

The doorknob turned, its revolution drawn out into the length of a day, spinning like the earth on its axis. Clare felt her muscles tense and that predatory rush of adrenaline burst into her brain, making her fingers itch. The door opened—a large, calloused hand—not Christian's—on the other side. She lunged and kicked the door open with her left foot while grabbing the hand of the intruder, pressing her thumbs hard into the sensitive flesh between the bones in the front of the hand. In a continuation of the fluid movement, she lowered her center of gravity, pivoted and used her momentum to throw the intruder to the floor, keeping her grip on his hand so that she had him in an arm-bar. Blood rushed in her ears as she twisted the arm and forced the man to roll onto his stomach—_like shoving his hand into his back pocket, that's it, don't be afraid to break a few arms if that's what keeps them from pulling a knife—_and she pressed a knee into the tender spot where the spine merges with the bones of the skull.

Then the rush faded and she noted with interest that the man she had forced into submission rather painfully looked, at least from the back, like Murphy.

"Fuck, fuck, _fuck_," he was gasping, "Jesus _Christ, _that _hurts, _woman."

She released her hold and stood, brushing a stray tendril of hair away from her face. "Sorry."

Murphy didn't move when she removed her weight and got to her feet. He lay still, panting, head down on his arms, muttering curses into his elbows.

"Did I hurt you?" Clare asked calmly, kneeling.

Murphy took a deep breath and sat up, trying to hide his wince. "Not much."

"Don't lie." Clare's gaze was stern.

"Well, what do you expect?" he shot back at her, rubbing his face.

"I didn't expect someone to be barging into my bedroom this morning," countered Clare. Her eyes narrowed. "What _were_ you doing, sneaking around the house like that?"

"Sneaking? I'd call it securing," replied Murphy. "This place has so many windows it gives me the fuckin' creeps."

"So I'd suppose your ideal living-space would be a cement cell," reasoned Clare. "Or a bomb shelter."

Murphy made a face at her. "I was just makin' sure that there's no…no trouble."

"Just making sure that the members of that gang that messed you up aren't coming after poor, defenseless little me?" Clare smiled wolfishly. Murphy stared at her in amazement.

"Jesus Christ, woman, what _are _you?" he asked. "Fuck, first you're an angel of mercy and then you turn into some jiu-jitsu demon."

"Jiu-jitsu demon?" She arched an eyebrow.

"That shit. Hurt. Only people with experience know that," he said.

"How do you know someone didn't teach me that? Self-defense is a big issue for women living in big cities like Boston."

"That wasn't entirely a fuckin' self-defense move. You were _waiting_ for me to come through the door—lying in wait like some fucking tiger—"

"Oh, so first I'm a demon, now I'm an animal?"

Murphy sighed in frustration. She saw him still his hand as it involuntarily twitched toward his side. "Never mind."

She shrugged. "All right. Sure I didn't hurt you too bad?"

"Yes," Murphy muttered, his stung pride evident in his expression of child-like chagrin.

"Don't pout. It looks stupid." She stood and walked over to her dresser. Murphy realized with a jolt that all she'd been wearing during their entire encounter was an oversized t-shirt that almost reached her knees—it skimmed her long, muscled thighs. Clare shot a glance back at him over her shoulder. He was staring, his dark eyes riveted on her bare legs, questions floating across his face. "Yes' to underwear, 'no' to bra, and 'no chance in hell' to…well, whatever it is that you're thinking of doing to me." She walked briskly across the room, a bundle of clothes in her arm. "If you want breakfast, Christian cooks divine omelets at exactly zero seven thirty every morning."

Murphy blinked. God. Christ. Jesus. There weren't enough deities to name. This was one woman he couldn't peg, and he couldn't decide whether that was a good or bad thing.

Clare emerged from her bedroom a little while later, wearing long mesh shorts and a Johns Hopkins t-shirt, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She slid into the kitchen with the same silent grace with which she had effortlessly thrown Murphy to the ground less than half an hour before. Glancing at her watch, she nodded in satisfaction as she heard the sizzle of eggs hitting the skillet in the kitchen. But despite the anticipatory growl of her very empty stomach, she detoured into the living room, padding softly over the stained carpet.

Someone—probably Christian—had fetched Connor a pillow and a navy fleece blanket, tucking it around him with all the care of an older sibling or a parent. Clare smiled to herself. Once you got past the 'I'm-too-gay-to-handle' façade, Christian had a heart of pure gold—if you went for overused clichés and sappy emotional romanticism. She valued neither, but knew all the same that her friend had a soft side, having had her own personal encounters with it over the years.

A bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol stood solidly by one leg of the table, within easy reaching distance for Connor. She frowned—that was rather risky, allowing an injured man to dose himself with painkillers. Tylenol wasn't exactly easy to overdose, but still, with the severity of Connor's injuries she had no doubt that he was in rather intense discomfort.

To her surprise, he was sleeping. Still pale, but looking better, she noted—some color had returned to his cheeks, and a shadow of whiskers lined his chin and throat. Kind of attractive, in a husky way. Then she shook her head. Focus. Gently peeling back the blanket, she found that Christian hadn't gone so far as to provide him with a shirt, much to her amusement and relief. It would have made a quick examination rather difficult.

A pad of gauze had been fixed to Connor's side with white medical tape, covering the laceration that she'd had to probe the night before. His ribs were still mottled with bruises, but she noted in satisfaction that the swelling had gone down and none of the contusions had worsened—a good sign, or as good of a sign as she was going to get, for now. She moved to check his side, but then paused and thought better of it. Better to let him sleep.

"He's doin' better this mornin'," said Murphy quietly from over her shoulder.

She jumped and then glared at him over her shoulder. He smiled and quirked an eyebrow.

"Figured this might be the only time I could get a jump on you," he said wryly. "Wanted to get some payback in while I still could."

"You wish," she retorted. "That's kind of sad, that you can only sneak up on me while I'm preoccupied with your brother's medical condition."

Murphy immediately looked grave. "He _is_ doin' better, isn't he?"

Clare nodded. "Yes. I'm going to have to wait until he wakes up, but it looks as though he'll pull through. As long as there's no infection." Then she brightened. "Would you like some eggs?"

"Um," said Murphy, looking nervously toward the kitchen.

"Oh come on, now, he won't _bite,_" said Clare in a low voice.

"I only bite when they ask me to," came Christian's voice from the kitchen. He appeared in the doorway, dressed in a flamboyant "Kiss the Cook" apron and waggling his eyebrows in what he clearly thought was a devilish manner.

Clare rolled her eyes, latched onto Murphy's arm and all but dragged the protesting Irishman into the kitchen. She plopped him into a chair. "Now eat. You can't survive on cigarettes and beer."

Murphy rubbed his arm. God almighty, this woman was similar to Ma in a very terrifying way. "Yes, ma'am."

She tapped the side of his head lightly—a warning. Christian grinned. "Don't be smart," said Clare. "Just eat."

Murphy sighed and followed her advice, ignoring the suggestive hip-swivel that was served up with his pepper omelet.

"Hope you like things spicy," whispered Christian, flashing a flirty grin as he slid Murphy's omelet onto his plate. He scurried away when Murphy glared at him balefully. Clare smothered a smile and dug into her own breakfast. As much as she hated to admit it, she could get used to having the twins around. It was nice not to feel alone in the house.

After breakfast, she checked on Connor again, and as she walked into the living room he lifted his head a bit.

"Any chance I could sleep on somethin' that doesn't fuckin' twist my back ten ways at once?" he said grumpily as she neared, shifting on the table.

"Good morning to you too," replied Clare. "And I'm sorry that you had to sleep on the table. I didn't want to set your side bleeding again." She smiled at him. "Now, let me take a look." Delicately peeling back the gauze taped to his side, she saw with satisfaction that the laceration had clotted nicely, and the lips of the wound showed no sign of infection. Good. She gently peeled the rest of the tape off and opened her kit, rubbing hand sanitizer on her hands again before tearing open a new gauze packet. As she was cutting lengths of white tape precisely and quickly, she glanced up and noticed that Connor was watching her. She shifted. "Do you always stare when someone is measuring tape?" she inquired mildly, finishing and leaning over to press the gauze against Connor's side. He hissed a little but held still as she finished taping the padding to the wound.

"Only if the doctor's pretty," he replied, catching her off guard. Then he winced and stretched his neck. "Can I move to the couch?"

"Oh," said Clare, trying to clear her mind. "Yes, of course. Here, let me help you."

"If you insist," murmured Connor as he sat up stiffly. She tapped at one muscled arm and he lifted it with some difficulty so she could insert herself under his shoulder.

"Come on, then," she said. Then she paused. "On second thought, wouldn't a proper bed be more comfortable?"

"I'm fine with the couch," Connor said quickly.

Clare glanced at him sidelong and noticed with an amused interest that he was coloring, just a little. "I mean in the guest room."

"Oh. Well, fuck. That's fine then."

"Might as well, when I have you up," she grinned. They began jolting their way toward the spare bedroom, which, thankfully, was on the first level of the house, on the opposite side of the large, open living room.

"So I hear," panted Connor in quick spurts, "that you went Rambo on my dear brother's ass this mornin.' Ah."

They'd reached the guest room. He sat down gratefully on the bed, looking rather dubiously at the pale pink coverlet.

"Well, he was sneaking around my bedroom," explained Clare innocently.

Connor looked at her sharply and muttered something under his breath that contained a lot of expletives. Clare got the feeling that the twins' next conversation would not be a congenial one; she thought of retracting her statement but then mentally shrugged. Boys will be boys. "Do you want anything to eat?" she asked Connor. He made a face.

"Nah," he said. "Stomach's not exactly up to par right now, what with being banged about and all." He grinned somewhat ruefully.

Clare took a seat at the edge of the bed. "What happened?" she asked softly.

Connor went still. "You don't need to know this," he replied in the same quiet, intense tone.

"Yes. I do." Clare refused to break his gaze; they locked eyes and it was a contest of will. Well, he'd see what she was made of. "You're in my house now."

"That was your decision," pointed out Connor, not unkindly but with an edge to his voice. A cautious edge.

"I have other ways of finding out," she warned him in a near-whisper. "I swear. If you don't believe me, just say no and give me twenty-four hours." Her grey eyes were hard as granite. He wavered. She leaned in closer. "Let me tell you, Connor. If you think that the gang who came after you were dangerous men…then you haven't met a truly dangerous woman." The implication was clear but he pressed his mouth together firmly, rebelliously. Clare stood. Her eyes flashed. "Just ask your brother."

And with that, she walked out of the room, leaving Connor sitting on a pink bed, wondering what the hell they had gotten themselves into when they had let this spitfire shovel them off the streets.


	7. Dirty Little Secrets

**My apologies for not posting sooner! Life has kept me on my toes...it's a short chapter, but I like to think it's juicy. Feel free to review. : )**

**Arwen**

"So." Christian looked over his shoulder at Clare as he began scrubbing the pan he had used to make the omelets.

"So what?" Clare arched an eyebrow as she poured herself a glass of chocolate milk and chugged it, wiping her mouth unceremoniously with the back of her hand.

Christian didn't look at her as he continued; he squirted more detergent onto the sponge and went to work on the greasy bits of egg still stuck to the bottom of the pan. "Are you all right?"

Clare bit back her snappish response and instead stood quietly for a moment. Finally, she set down her glass and replied, "Not really."

Christian nodded, still scrubbing vigorously. "I thought so. You know you can't hide forever from me, honey."

With a sigh, she pulled up a stool and sat. "There was just so much going on. I couldn't give in to it yet."

"You don't have to give in to it," Christian said softly. "Maybe you should just talk about it."

Clare looked at him unhappily. "I was getting ready to go for a run, you know."

Christian looked askance at the ring of chocolate sludging the bottom of her glass. "After milk?"

"It's never bothered me," she said defensively. "I didn't throw up at the chamber even after they gave us milk, remember?"

Christian shook his head. "And then they called you Supergirl for the rest of Basic, remember _that_?"

She tried to grimace but failed and settled for a smile. "Yes," she muttered.

Christian finished with the pan and put it on the rack to dry. Then he pulled up a stool next to Clare. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, I…." Clare trailed off as the memories hit her again. She bowed her head and felt her shoulders hunch in self-defense. "I…don't know, Chris. I don't. Give me a little while."

"Don't let it eat you up inside before you come to me," said Christian firmly, all trace of his lilting affected accent gone. "I'm being serious here."

"I know." She shuddered a little, her eyes far away. "It's just…seeing that blood…it was like it was _his_…and _mine…_ all over again. It was like it was happening all over again." Her voice had dropped to nearly a whisper.

Christian put a firm arm around her shoulders. "Listen to me, Clare. You did all you could the first time. Just like you did this time. Connor just happened to live."

She closed her eyes. "It doesn't make it any better."

"I know it doesn't, but you have to think of that. Don't let it get you down, missy," he said.

"I can't help it. Really."

"You can't relive it forever, Clare," Christian said softly.

"Don't talk to me like you're my shrink," snapped Clare. She suddenly slammed her glass down on the table and it shattered, shards of glass arcing out and catching rainbows in their cores before skittering across the linoleum of the kitchen floor. Shoving her stool back, she stood, heedless of the peril her toes were in amongst the sharp edges of glass. "You don't _know_ what it was like. You might have been there but you don't _know._ No matter how many times I tell you about it, you will never _know. _So stop pretending to be my psychiatrist and start being my gay best friend." She finished, chest heaving, eyes glittering, and then turned on her heel and strode away.

"Where are you going?" called Christian, his voice only a bit unsteady.

"For a run. Like I said," Clare shot back over her shoulder. Christian watched her while she shoved her shoes into her Asics and savagely tightened the laces.

"Don't cut off your circulation," he scolded.

"If you don't shut up, I'm going to cut off something else!" she snapped with a glint in her eye. Christian rolled his eyes and cocked a hip.

"What, and deprive the gay population of Boston of _this_? I don't think so," he said. "Now shoo. Go pound out your emotions on the asphalt, or whatever it is that you runner types do."

Clare stuck her tongue out at him and grabbed a sweatshirt before heading out the door.

As soon as the door clicked shut, a voice came from the doorway. "Jesus Christ. She bipolar or somethin'?"

Christian turned to face Murphy, who was standing in the doorway, wet hair plastered to his forehead and a slightly guilty look on his face. Murphy put his hands up as Christian glared at him. "Whoa, sorry, I just couldn't find a fuckin' towel."

"So you eavesdrop?" asked Christian with a delicate restraint, one eyebrow raised.

"I—I wasn't fuckin _eavesdroppin_, I just happened to…hear part of the conversation," finished Murphy lamely. "And…she shouldn't be out runnin' by herself," he added feebly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Trust me, she can take care of herself," said Christian frostily. "Towels are under the sink in the bathroom. I'd suggest you refrain from 'overhearing' anymore conversations and remember that you are a _guest_ in this house, and that both you and your brother owe your _lives_ to Clare." He stood. Murphy thought with some trepidation that for a gay guy, the man looked pretty intimidating when he wanted to—beneath the flamboyantly colored polo and immaculately faded skinny jeans was a very large amount of muscle, if you looked carefully enough. It was just all streamlined by stripes and style.

"I'm sure you've had your own warning from Clare," Christian said, his voice deadly serious, "but here's your warning from me." He leaned in until his face was inches from Murphy's. The Irishman refused to flinch. "You act like _gentlemen_ and don't try anything. No prying." He leaned closer. Murphy could smell the mint of his toothpaste. "If you make her cry, I will break one of your bones for every tear she sheds." A chill ran down Murphy's spine. Then Christian broke into a smile and cocked his head. "Okay, sugar?" he asked in his usual cheery lilt, giving Murphy a 'playful' punch to the shoulder that almost lifted him off his feet.

"Whatever you fuckin' say," replied Murphy, his eyes hard. He didn't like taking threats from people…especially men…and most especially, gay men. There was just something about it. Christian gave him one more look and then deliberately walked away. Murphy sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

His mind was spinning as he walked to the guest room, running his fingers through his hair. "Oy, Conn."

Connor rolled over. "What, ass-face?"

"How bout ye stop dallyin on the bed and come an give a listen," said Murphy. He did a double take. "The fucking bed is fucking _pink_, for the love of God."

Connor shrugged and sat up with a wince as he gave a jaw-cracking yawn. "Still a bed. Come and have a sit."

Murphy sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, making a face that effectively expressed his disgust for the color scheme of the room.

"So," said Connor. "Did ye wake me up for nothin', ye fuck?"

"A course not," said Murphy, pretending to be affronted. He reached out as if to box Connor's ears, but then checked himself, his eyes grave.

Connor poked his twin in the back. "Don't you go all pensive on me now, Murph."

Murphy shook his head. "Sorry. It's just…if it hadn't been fer that _galya_…well, never ye mind me." He grinned.

"What's up?" asked Connor again. "C'mon, ye can't expect me to stay awake forever. This bed is comfortable."

"It's fucking _pink_," said Murphy in exasperation. "Anyway. What do ye think?"

Connor considered. "Said she put ye in an arm-bar?"

"Yeah. Fuckin' hurt. Army?"

Shaking his head thoughtfully, Connor bit at his lower lip. "Nah."

"Why not?"

"Her move was pure MCMAP."

"Marine Corps?" Murphy looked skeptical. "I dunno, Conn."

"Ye know I'm fuckin' right," said Connor smugly.

Murphy narrowed his eyes. "I think the question is, why are you so fuckin' sure you're right?"

Connor pointed to the drawer of the bedside dresser. "Look in the bottom."

With another skeptical look, Murphy leaned down and opened the bottom drawer. Inside there was a black shoebox. There was dust on the top, scattered in a wide swipe where he was suddenly certain his brother's hand had brushed it. He carefully lifted the box out of the drawer—the cardboard was soft and worn, a stark contrast to the dust. Delicately, he pried the lid off…and almost dropped the box. "Holy fucking shit."

"That's what I said," said Connor grimly.


	8. The Protector

_This chapter is dedicated to LT Michael Murphy, Navy SEALs, and his team. He and all but one of his team were killed during Operation Redwing in the mountains of Afghanistan on June 28, 2005. They were tasked with locating a key leader in the insurgency, and were surrounded by a force of over 50 anti-coalition fighters. (The team consisted of four SEALs.) During the ensuing firefight, all of the team was wounded, and LT Murphy rushed out into the open to place a call for backup for his team—the communications system didn't work in the close ravine they had chosen for their stand. Once he made contact with the base, he stayed on the radio even after being shot in the back, making sure that the correct location was known for his team's sake. For his selflessness and valor, he is being posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. At the award ceremony, his father said that they had always called Michael 'the Protector' because of his strong sense of responsibility and moral compass. _

_Rest in peace, brother-in-arms. _

_"For he who sheds his blood with me this day shall be counted as my brother…" _

Clare closed her eyes as she ran through the park, letting herself sink into the feeling of the blood pulsing through her veins, fueling the rush of her lungs and the beat of her feet against the ground. She didn't run with music; she never had, always finding it more soothing to be left utterly alone with the wonder that was her body. Even during boot camp, she'd found running to be soothing—granted, sometimes it wasn't exactly a welcome activity, especially with the packs when Gunny decided it was time for a ruck run. But it had always lifted her spirits, once the warmup was over. A small smile lifted one corner of her mouth as she remembered the hazy summer mornings, rolling out of her rack and feeling the sweet pull of muscles sore from the day before. Then she carefully shut off the stream of memories before it progressed too far and pulled her into the maelstrom that had been the darkest time in her life. She'd carefully pruned her recollections, trimming them here and there to avoid the pain. Sometimes she felt like a coward when she blanked out like that, but she told herself it was necessary. She didn't ever want to travel to that dark place again.

Her run took her through the park, up the hill into a residential neighborhood much like her own, where the sidewalks were white and the small squares of ground in front of each house lush with carefully mowed green grass. She slowed to a light jog, let herself cool down for a block, and then stopped in front of a house with blue shutters. Sweat slid down her back as she regained her breath and considered the move she was about to make. Then she carefully shook out her ponytail, twisted her hair into a neat bun at the nape of her neck, and walked up the front steps.

Her hand trembled a little as she reached for the doorbell and she scowled fiercely at it, as if glaring at her limb would stop its tremors. She pressed the button and waited, hearing the echo of the chimes throughout the house. Her legs tensed of their own accord when she heard heavy footsteps approaching the door, but she calmly took a deep breath and smiled when the door opened.

The man who opened the door looked completely gobsmacked at the sight of her—and he looked like the type of man who was not often surprised by anything. He was well over six feet tall, and though there was grey just showing at his temples, he looked as though he would be able to bench-press an unruly ox without much effort. "Well, damn," he said in a deep, resonant voice. "If it isn't Supergirl."

"Hi, Bear," responded Clare. "Sorry to drop in on you like this—" she made an apologetic gesture toward her running shorts and mud-stained sneakers, but her sentence was cut short as she found herself enveloped in a crushing hug—Bear's trademark. That, and the fact that he could scare anyone as bad as a bear when he wanted to.

"Shut up and get the hell in here," Bear rumbled, ushering her through the door as she rubbed at her ribs and tried to regain her breath.

"Pretty nice place you got set up," she remarked, careful not to step off the mat onto the glossy wood of the entryway. The massive man beside her shrugged.

"S'pose so," he said. "Suits me well enough. Hey, Essie!" he bellowed up the staircase. Clare winced and then grinned. Despite the cultured exterior of his house, Bear hadn't changed a bit in the days since she'd known him.

"Essie," she said, brightening. "Isn't that—Melissa?"

"The same," Bear rumbled with a fond smile.

"When did you two get married?" asked Clare innocently, and then wished she hadn't said anything at all.

"We got hitched right after—" Bear stopped and his face darkened. He placed a huge hand on her shoulder. "We sent you an invitation, we really did."

"Never mind," said Clare with too much cheer in her hollow voice.

"Honey, who's that you're talking to?" came a female voice down the stairs.

"Why don't you come and see, woman?" responded Bear with a fake scowl. Clare hid a smile at his affected chauvinism.

A slim woman pattered down the stairs with bare feet, her black hair artfully braided and carefully arranged in a loose bun at the back of her head. She paused at the bottom of the stairs and merely looked at Clare for a moment, her dark eyes measuring this stranger in her house. Then she gave her husband a look of long-suffering disdain. "I'm seeing, honey. I still don't know who she is."

"Clare MacDonough." Clare stepped forward and offered her hand, then realized it was sweaty from her run, but Bear's wife shook her hand heartily without hesitation.

"Supergirl," said Bear in an undertone to his wife, who chuckled at the look of utter chagrin Clare turned upon Bear.

"Must you tell everyone you meet that nickname?" she demanded. Bear held his huge hands up, a laugh rolling out from his chest.

"You _were_ pretty impressive during the chamber," he said with a twinkle in his eye. Essie laughed at the glare Clare shot in Bear's direction.

"You had to haul my ass out and you know it," she said, scowling fiercely.

"I'll go fix us something to drink," Essie said tactfully, trying to control the laughter in her voice.

"Actually," said Clare quickly. "I really won't be staying long."

Bear rolled his eyes at her. "I knew it. Thought you'd actually come by to visit me for a change."

With a wry grin Clare slipped her fingers into her fluorescent armband, into the clear plastic sheath that held her driver's license and emergency contact information. She withdrew a small, glittering computer chip no bigger than the pad of her thumb. Bear took it from her carefully, holding it between two large fingers and examining it.

"Memory drive?" he inquired with one raised eyebrow. She nodded.

"There's some…pictures on there," she said carefully and with the utmost composure. "I made some new friends and I thought you'd find them interesting."

Bear raised his eyebrows further and glanced at her. "I'm sure I will. You'll want this back, right?"

"No, you can keep it," said Clare, stepping carefully through the maze of their words. "But give me a call on my cell if you'd like to meet them."

"Sure thing," said Bear. With the little chip still between his fingers, he gave her a one-armed hug. "I'm glad you remembered me when it came to these new friends," he said quietly.

"You're the best," said Clare offhandedly. "I don't forget that. Ever."

A distant rumble of thunder echoed through the house. Clare glanced at her watch and grimaced. "Sorry, I've gotta go if I want to beat this storm home. My friends think I'm out for a run."

"Well, you are," reasoned Bear in his deep bass.

"I am," admitted Clare, "but with a little side-trip." She flashed Bear a grin. "All right. Remember, call me if you want to meet my friends. We'd have a great time together, I think." She paused, hand on the doorknob. "But I invited them to stay with me for a little while, just so you know."

"They're that close?" Bear didn't sound surprised, but there was a note of suspicion in his voice.

"They just…needed a little help getting back on their feet," replied Clare. "I made a quick offer."

"I see," said Bear thoughtfully, rolling the memory chip around in his massive palm. "I'll call you soon as I decide I wanna meet these guys."

"Sure thing," said Clare. And with that, she slipped out the door, much to the chagrin of Essie, who had fixed lemonade for the three of them and stood looking slightly bewildered in the hallway. Then she shook her head at her husband, whose whole attention was commanded by the tiny silver disc in his hand, and went to put the drinks back in the refrigerator.

xXxXx

"Holy fucking shit," repeated Murphy, almost dropping the box. The back of his neck tingled—like someone had touched an electrode to the muscles down his back. He willed his hands not to shake, although there was no-one there but his brother to see.

"The galya's got demons of her own," Connor murmured softly, trying to fit together the picture of the attractive woman who had nursed his wounds so tenderly with the new image provided by the objects in the box.

"No shit," breathed Connor.

The box was filled to the brim with neatly organized stacks of letters, photos—and in one corner, blank black boxes, one atop the other, lacquered and hinged at the one side. The photo on the top of the pile showed a platoon of Marines, their faces lit with that peculiar mixture of laughter and defiance only produced by the closest bonds of brotherhood—or, in this case, sisterhood. For there, sandwiched right in the front row between a humongous bear of a man and a grinning blonde-haired Adonis, was Clare.

xXxXx

The clouds rumbled again ominously overhead as Clare made her way back through the park. She grimaced to herself and knew that she was going to be drenched before she would make it home. It was a sort of sixth sense, she supposed; it came from running on balmy August nights when thunderheads rolled in like freight-cars overhead and unceremoniously dumped the Atlantic on her head. She felt it in her bones when it was going to rain…she shook her arm in irritation and frowned against the memory. God, what was with her today? Why were all these memories pressing at the floodgates now, of all times? Saturday mornings were for running and relaxation…although, Friday nights were typically nights out at the clubs with Christian acting as her 'wingman.' Last night had been nothing of the sort, so she supposed she shouldn't have expected a typical Saturday.

Her sneakers crunched the gravel on the path as she breezed beneath the trees. Her mind was turned inward as she reflected on the events of the past day—but she was never unaware of her surroundings, and she heard the snap of the twig before the beefy arm snaked around her neck.

xXxXxXx

"What do ye think is in the boxes?" breathed Murphy. He handed the first photo to Connor, who studied it with a slight frown on his face while his more excitable twin rifled through the rest of the photos.

"Dunno," muttered Murphy. "Holy fuck, this is Baghdad or some goddamn desert."

Connor glanced over at the photo held between Murphy's fingers: desert camo, goggles, M-16s poised with dust-guards in place. She had a badge on her arm—supposed it meant she was a doctor or something of the sort. "Hell of a galya."

Murphy squinted at one of the pictures. "Think this is her boy, then?" It was another picture of the Adonis, his arm wrapped loosely around Clare—but this time, his head was turned toward her and there was an unmistakable expression of love on both their faces. When Connor didn't answer, Murphy looked up and sighed heavily at the expression on his twin's face. "Ah, ye fuck. No use bein' jealous. She's taken, she's taken." He shrugged.

"She fuckin' saved our lives, Murph," said Connor, placing the first photo reverently back in the box. He suddenly realized what this would look like—them tearing apart her dearest memories, obviously things she didn't want to remember, if they were hidden in a shoebox in the guest-room dresser. "Maybe—we shouldn't—"

"Don't get all guilty on me, Conn," threatened Murphy. "Ye're the one who opened the fuckin' box in th' first place."

Connor sighed and sat back, leaving his brother to sort through the letters and photos. "I'm just tired, is all."

"Then go the fuck to sleep," suggested Murphy, still rifling through the photos with one thumb. He pulled out another—an earlier photo, just after boot camp he supposed. All dressed up, with ribbons on their chests and grinning like idiots. His fingers moved toward the letters…but he stopped and reconsidered, turning back to the photo, studying the faces of the bright young soldiers. He wondered how a young Marine ended up in Boston, hiding her memories in a shoebox. He wondered why she would scrape two strangers off the street and save their lives, soak her hands in their blood without flinching.

Connor watched his brother's introspection covertly, through half-lidded eyes. He saw his brother's fingers twitch toward the black lacquered boxes in the corner of the shoebox. Some part of him wanted to stop his brother…but hell, he was curious.

Murphy picked up the first box. Although it was small, it felt strangely heavy in his hand, and a strange shiver raced through his fingertips. He opened the box—the lid creaked a little—and stared at the object nestled inside on a bed of velvet. It was a rich, royal purple ribbon, striped down both sides with white, leading to a glistening white shield bearing three red stars and two red stripes. By the miniature shield, the golden sides of the medal curved out and met in a point at the far end, and on the purple lacquered center the side portrait of a regal man—some president, Murphy supposed—was inlaid in gold.

Connor sat bolt upright in the bed. He was speechless. His brother, however, was never at a loss for colorful words. He almost dropped the box as he gesticulated wildly with the other hand. "Holy Mother of God, Conn, all the saints and martyrs be fucked! Holy fucking—holy--- fucking…Jesus Christ." His words lowered into a kind of moan of bewilderment. "Christ, Conn, do ye know what this is?"

"A Purple Heart," whispered Connor. Despite the fact that there was no real legacy of military service in his family, neither here nor in Ireland, they had been brought up with respect for the armed forces, mostly because their parish priest insisted that Jesus, too, was a warrior when the time was right. Connor remembered Father Peter's words, flung from the lectern: _An He fought wit da devil, He did, our Lord an Savior—an none will evah tell me that wasn' the fight of a soldier, of a warrior—our Lord roustin the Black One from our souls._

Though in public they might throw disdain on such brawling displays of masculinity as the military, they respected it. But Connor could feel a cold resentment building in his stomach—something or someone had cut Clare deeply, wounding her enough physically or mentally to make her retreat and bury the memories. "Put it away," he said.

Clare let herself in the back door, snatching at the key she always left beneath the doormat and clutching it to her chest. It was pouring, soaking her to the skin, her ponytail hanging in a limp rope down her back. Slipping inside, she rubbed at her neck and shook her head to rid her mind of the words the man in the park had whispered into her ear.

_Su vida es la mia, _the voice had whispered. _Su familia, sus amigos, toda la mina, porque usted ha tomado algo que pertenece a mi. Los que roban del jefe no viven de largo, Chiquita. _A cold chuckle, brushing her ear. _Perro del Diablo._

She dripped onto the linoleum of the kitchen floor. Christian had left a note on the counter—he was gone to the boutique for a while, he would pick up Chinese on the way home. Moving as if in a trance, she walked toward the guest bedroom, where she could hear the low rumbles of voices.

"Put it away," said Connor as she slid silently around the corner, ghosted through the door.

Connor and Murphy were sitting on the pink bed in the guest room, a shoebox between them, Murphy gazing at the object he held in his hand with a fixed, almost horrified fascination. "I wonder," he murmured in a slow, dreamy voice, "was it the galya or her boy?"

Water from her sodden shorts tricked down her leg, drip-drip-dripped onto the carpet with an audible patter, like a mouse's feet. Her breath became loud and roaring in her ears—the blood was rushing to her fingers, making them twitch, and she gritted her teeth against it. Connor was the first to see her—his blue eyes widened in guilt, in trepidation, glancing back lightning-quick to the black box in Murphy's hand, the damning photos scattered across the pink bedspread. "Murphy," he said warningly. Then, pleading, "Clare, we didn't mean to—"

"You didn't _mean_ to," Clare repeated. Her voice wasn't her own, scraping low with emotion, dripping with disgust. "I—I took you in. I saved your lives."

"And we're grateful," said Connor softly, gazing at her earnestly. "It's my fault. I'm sorry."

"You're _sorry?"_ Clare gave him a look of pure scorn. "No. _I'm_ the one that should be sorry."

"If ye want to talk—"

"If I want to _talk_?" Her voice was rising, almost to a screech. She couldn't control it. It was like a whirlwind within her, a maelstrom of raging emotions. "God, do you know how many times I've heard that?"

"More than enough, I suppose," said Murphy, still holding the Purple Heart.

"_You!" _Clare whirled on him, eyes blazing. _"Don't _touch _that!" _she yelled, control breaking as she saw the medal in the black box. She snatched it from him, fingers like claws, eyes like coals. She shut the box, pressed it to her chest with one hand, tried to gather the pictures together with the other, breathing hard. Connor picked up a photo and slipped it back into the box, exchanging a worried look with his brother. Clare caught his wrist. "I said, don't touch." Her voice was low, steely.

"I—we're sorry—" Connor tried again, feeling as though he was scrabbling against a solid stone wall.

"Don't be sorry. Get out."

The brothers exchanged another look.

"Into the living room!" she snapped at them. "Go!"

Murphy lingered to help Connor stand. Together, they limped into the living room. Connor sank slowly onto one of the couches, putting his head into his hands. "Well, we sure made a mess of that."

Murphy looked at his twin with a wry smile. "Don't we always fuckin' make a mess of things?"

Connor sighed. "Fuck, I need a beer."

"I need a cig," agreed Murphy, wanting to erase the lines of worry from his twin's face. He felt the guilt pricking its talons into his soul. "Damn Catholic guilt," he muttered.

"You can say that again," Connor spoke into his hands.

They'd unearthed the secret of their mysterious rescuer, but he realized grimly that with that action, they might have lost her forever as well.

Translation: Your life is mine. Your family is mine, your friends--all mine, because you have stolen something that belongs to me. Those that steal from the boss don't live long, little girl. Devil Dog.


	9. Digging Deep

**Sorry about the long wait--I hope it's worth it, more on the way...let me know what you think!**

**Arwen**

"So. What do we do now?" muttered Murphy. Connor looked pensive, his hand curled lightly around his side.

"Dunno. She probly doesn't ever want to fuckin' talk to us again," said Connor softly. His guilt was rubbing at him, making him raw from the inside out. For some reason, he felt a connection with this galya, the strange woman who took them in and now was dangerous in her unbridled rage. He looked at Murphy. "Who do you think…?"

"Christ, Conn, drop it!" snapped Murphy, looking immediately contrite at the harsh tone of his words. He ran his hands through his hair. "Sorry."

"It's nothin'," muttered Connor, but he could feel the tension still between them. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn't get the image of that blond soldier and Clare…together…out of his head…and it was starting to really get on his nerves. Honestly. Who fell for someone who'd saved their life only a few days before?

Murphy pressed his lips together. "So. Other than the fact that we prob'ly fucked that up good, how long d'ye think we have until they find us?"

Connor almost breathed a sigh of relief. Serious discussion mode, he could handle that right now, he supposed, more than he could handle thinking about how badly he'd screwed up his chances with Clare. "Depends. If they really want us, I think they'll find us within a day, maybe. They had to have left someone to watch us, after they dumped us in that fuckin' alley…and so they prob'ly saw our guardian angel pickin' us up."

"Think they tailed us back to th' house?"

Connor shrugged. "I dunno. You didn't see anythin' when you went around the house, right?"

"Not before Miss Guardian Angel kicked my ass," Murphy muttered. "No, other than that, nothin' outta the ordinary. I didn't check the closets or the basement, though. Didn't have time."

"Well, then as long as we keep outta sight," Connor started hopefully, then stopped as his brother shook his head.

"You know we gotta get the fuck outta here," Murphy said, looking for a place to tip his cigarette ash and settling for a used paper cup standing on the table. "You know we can't stay."

"But—Clare—"

"Look, Conn, I know ye want to play hero an' all, but we just can't afford it," he pressed on. "That galya can sure as hell take care of herself, an' we're puttin' her in more danger by stayin' than leavin'."

"She doesn't even know what the fuck happened to us," Connor countered. "She asked me, and I told her to fuck off, and she doesn't even know." His blue eyes bored into his twin's gaze, willing him to understand. Clare was _not_ going to end up one of those women on the five o'clock news, found raped and murdered and dumped off the docks. He knew he was jumping to the worst-case scenario, but he couldn't help it, not after what happened at the warehouse.

"She doesn't _need_ to know," snapped Murphy, blood beginning to heat. "They want _us_, and when we get the fuck out of here they won't care about her anymore."

"She _helped_ us, Murph, she _helped us._" Connor didn't want to say it, but he didn't know how else to make Murphy understand. "Like Rocco. He helped us—"

"Aw, fuck, Conn—"

"He helped us and they didn't care, they fuckin' killed him too." It hurt, dragging Rocco into this, but if it would get his point across, he would damn well drag Christ Himself into the argument. They sat for a moment, just looking at each other, the silence heaving with tension and anger. It was like a silent tug of war, and Connor sure as hell was not going to let his twin win the argument, for once. He knew he was right. He knew they would come after Clare, and he was not going to let it happen.

"Oooh, tension, tension," cooed an annoyingly familiar voice. Both the twins turned to find Christian prancing jauntily toward the bedroom, carrying bags from a shopping excursion. They simultaneously glared at him. Christian paused, grinning devilishly. "Did anyone ever tell you how _hot_ you are when you're angry?" he purred coyly before continuing toward Clare's bedroom. "Oh, Clare-bear," he sang. "Who wants some designer clothes?"

Murphy belatedly remembered Christian's threat, the seriousness of their situation penetrating through his anger-fogged, frustrated brain. He stared after the gay man with a stricken look.

"What?" his twin demanded, following his gaze.

"We're fucked," Murphy said grimly.

xXxXx

Clare didn't know how much time had passed, how much time she had spent just sitting on the bed, staring at the shoebox like it was some deadly poisonous snake. Its lid slid halfway off, and she could see the tangle of photos and the black lacquered boxes in the corner. Her stomach clenched and tossed and turned, but she suppressed it brutally. She would not run for the bathroom—she would not run from this _thing_, these images of a life she didn't want to remember.

_If you didn't want to remember, why did you keep the photos and the medals?_ whispered a nasty little voice in the back of her mind. She grimaced. It was true. She'd almost let Christian hide the box from her; she'd almost let him ferret it away in some anonymous closet or drawer, so she wouldn't chance upon it. So this wouldn't happen. She pressed her lips together and drew a deep breath and reached for one of the photos, her hand shaking. Tugging the picture out of the tangle, she looked at it and her breath caught. It was the picture of all of them, right after they'd received orders…right before they'd boarded a military transport plane—cargo nets as seats in the back, the air cold and dry—right before they'd come to know the meaning of relentless heat, sweat dripping down beneath their Kevlar, salt crystals ringing their armpits and drying on their faces. She shut her eyes and breathed slowly. Focus. And with that, she tucked the picture back into the box, leaving it at the bottom of the bed—it had _not_ beaten her. There were simply more important matters to attend. She walked into the bathroom and turned on the tap, the rushing of the water accompanying the roaring in her ears that gradually subsided as she squirted face cleanser onto her fingertips and worked up a lather over her face, scrubbing at her cheekbones with a zealous vigor. After rinsing, she toweled her face dry fiercely and went to find her cell phone. A shower would have to wait.

She paced the guest bedroom as the phone rang.

"Hello?" a deep voice said warily.

"Bear," she said quickly. "It's me. I need all the info you have. Now."

"Clare, you only left an hour ago," Bear said, the tone of his voice slow and suspicious.

"Thomas," she said intensely into the phone. "Things have changed. When I was running back through the park, I got hung up—spooked bad, Thomas. If they'd wanted, they could have had me."

Bear swore under his breath and then fell silent, which she took as her cue to continue. She cupped a hand around her mouth as she spoke softly into the phone. "I think these guys are involved in a turf war," she said. "This Spanish gang, they're not too happy about it, and they _knew_ me."

"What do you mean, they knew you?" Bear asked steadily. She could hear keys clicking in the backround.

"He called me Devil Dog," Clare said tightly.

"Shit," muttered Bear. "Hold on a second."

"Clare?"

Christian. Bear started to say something.

"Shit," said Clare. "Hold that thought." She turned to face a suspicious Christian, shopping bags in hand. "Hi. You went shopping," she added lamely with a pathetic attempt at a jaunty smile, knowing that she'd failed miserably and he'd seen right through her charade.

"What's going on?" he asked, turning his head as he put down the bags. He crossed his arms at her hesitation. "I go shopping for an hour and something goes wrong. Tell me."

Clare sighed. "You know you're annoying? And you're interrupting. I'm trying to have a conversation."

"Oh, well, I wouldn't want to interrupt your…I'm not…" Christian trailed off, his eyes focused over her shoulder, at the foot of the bed. "Is that…You didn't even know where I put it! You said you wouldn't go looking for it…unless…" His eyes flashed as he put the pieces together, looking at Clare's red eyes and the box on the bed and the absence of the twins. "Did those goddamn bastards make you cry?" he demanded.

"Christian, it's really not a big—"

"I'm going to kill them," he snarled, all vestiges of playboy gone from his demeanor as his fists clenched.

"No. Stay," Clare ordered, pointing to the bed. "If you want to know what's going on, sit your ass down and don't move."

Instead of sitting Christian glared at her and chose to pace.

"Sorry," she said into the phone, uncovering the receiver. "I'm back. What do you have for me?"

"I ran their pictures through the mainframe database of the Boston PD," said Bear, "and although I didn't get any hits on the vis ID, I _did_ find something interesting in the keyword search."

"Hit me," said Clare grimly.

"It's this story. About twins. Vigilantes, actually," said Bear.

"I remember this. The papers were calling them the Saints of Boston." Clare chewed on her lip, brow creased as her mind whirred. She slapped herself lightly on the forehead. "Shit. I should've put that together," she muttered to herself. "Are you telling me I'm harboring known criminals?"

"It depends on your definition of criminal," replied Bear, rapid keystrokes echoing over the phone line. "There's no heavy investigation into their activities because they hit the low-lives. Drug dealers, pimps, thieves, mobsters…you name a type of criminal, they've killed one. Or a dozen."

"So that's why the gang wasn't happy," she said. It was all starting to make sense—the Spanish she'd heard when the twins were dumped in the alley, the feel of the man's breath in her ear as he tightened his hands around her throat. "What's the most prominent Spanish-speaking gang around the upper part of Boston?" She paused. "One that might deal in drugs, and have former military men."

"A gang that deals in drugs and speaks Spanish. Gee, that's not hard to narrow down," said Bear drolly. "But I'll see what I can do." He paused. "Be careful, Clare. If you need help…"

"I know you're there," finished Clare for him. "Thanks. I'll call back later." She flipped the phone shut and looked at Christian, who gazed back expectantly. "Guess what?"

"I can kill them?" he guessed. She half-smiled and didn't say no.

"Apparently I'm harboring known criminals with a penchant for bloody vigilante justice, whose heads are wanted on a platter by no less than five different mobs or gangs in Boston," she said sweetly.

"I'm going to kill them," Christian said, brushing past her into the living room.

"Leave enough for me to interrogate afterwards, please?" called Clare.

"I'll try," Christian shot over his shoulder, "but I'm not making any promises I can't keep."


	10. Coming Clean

**My most sincere apologies for the serious lapse in updates. Life has been hectic and crazy, but this summer I have a laptop so perhaps that will mitigate my writer's block. Anyway, enjoy the extra long chaper and please let me know what you think...as alway, reviews make my day. **

**Arwen**

Connor had slid into a half-doze, leaning against Murphy on the couch, feeling the pulse of his wounds through his body. His sides still ached, and the skin at his throat was raw from the rope…a slight shudder ran through his body as he remembered the sound of slick Spanish on the cement, and the desperate darkness of the blindfold, straining to see with open eyes and failing…hearing Murphy's muffled grunts of pain and the slap of knuckles against flesh, and the powerless anger rushing through him, that he could do nothing about it. The smell of his own blood, and his brother's, metallic in the dank air. And the feel of the rope snaking about his neck, tightening slowly, Murphy's wordless shouts of anger and helplessness ringing in his ears.

Murphy brushed the hair from Connor's forehead tenderly, in a way that he'd never do when his brother was awake. He supposed it was easier to express love when a person was asleep and innocent, young-looking, with all lines of care smoothed from their face. Connor's forehead creased at some malignant dream. Then there was heavy footsteps, echoing through the house, and the door to Clare's bedroom slammed open. Connor jumped, muscles tensing abruptly, and then doubled over, hands going to his side.

"I told you what would happen if you made her cry," growled Christian, his eyes hard with a dangerous anger that Murphy recognized as similar to his own vengeful fury.

"Now listen—" he had time to say before the taller man grabbed his dark shirt, lifted him off the couch and punched him squarely in the jaw. Murphy grunted as Connor launched himself at Christian, landing a solid hook to his side before finding himself on the receiving end of a very vicious power hand to the stomach that sent lances of white-hot pain around his ribs. He gasped and went down, sliding off the couch onto the floor and just missing the sharp edges of the glossy coffee table.

"You bastards had no right," continued Christian, standing still momentarily as the twins struggled upright. Clare appeared in the doorway, with a scowl nearly as impressive as Christian's darkening her brow, and the brothers knew they would find no mercy in her this time. They glanced at each other and both went for Christian at once, Connor grimacing as his body protested again.

Christian took Murphy first, grasping his wrist and sending him careening off to the side with a deft lunge. Connor went for a chokehold, snugging his elbow beneath the other man's jaw. They were about the same height, but then Christian lowered his center of gravity, bending his legs and leaning forward, lifting Connor off the ground. Christian broke the chokehold by tucking his chin and pulling Connor's arm away from his neck.

Clare knew what Christian was going to do before he started the maneuver. It was the same move she would have chosen, and anger still warmed her stomach, but she saw how pale Connor had suddenly gone and a twinge of concern resonated in her chest. "Chris," she started warningly, but then Murphy slid in a cheap kidney punch and she knew it was a no-holds-barred brawl. With a snarl, Christian gathered himself, took hold of Connor's right arm, and then in one smooth terrifying movement he lunged forward, knees bent, torso parallel to the floor, and threw Connor over his shoulder, using his own body as leverage. By the grace of God, Connor, too, cleared all furniture obstacles before slamming into the floor on his back with a vibrating thud. His whole body went strangely still, and Clare rushed forward.

"Christian! Murphy!" The two men were still throwing punches, despite her stern commands. Without asking again, she waded between them, dodged a punch, and caught hold of Murphy's arm. His elbow bashed into her nose and she felt a warm rush of blood making its way down her nasal passages, but she ignored it and twisted Murphy's arm sharply. He dropped to his knees heavily, still struggling to reach Christian. "I'll dislocate your shoulder," she said sharply, putting a little more pressure on the tender ligaments of the rotator cuff. Murphy winced and she knew the pain had cut through the adrenaline. "Now," she said, directing her comments to both Christian and Murphy, "stop it." She knew it was no use chastising them—no matter how old or how mature, sometimes men just had to have conversations with their fists, and it seemed to work most of the time. She'd had enough experience to know that their anger was mostly spent, so she let go of Murphy and quickly made her way over to Connor, settling down on her knees beside him, swiping at her bloody nose with her sleeve.

"No," she said when Murphy took a step in her direction. "Both of you. Go put ice on your faces and I will tell you if I need anything." Her icy tone brooked no argument, although Murphy had to be guided by Christian to the kitchen—Clare couldn't tell if he couldn't see straight or if he was just trying to keep looking over his shoulder at Connor. She pressed her fingers against Connor's throat and found a strong pulse, and his breathing had a slight hitch but was deep and clear. Tapping lightly on his cheek, she attempted to rouse him. Smelling salts were a nasty way to be brought out of unconsciousness, and she preferred not to use them except when absolutely necessary. When he didn't respond, she rubbed two knuckles against his breastbone, stimulating the sensitive nerves. "Connor, can you hear me?"

That produced a thick groan in response. "What…th'hell…" His eyes opened, glassy and unfocused.

"You got on Christian's bad side," explained Clare perfunctorily. "You can't seem to keep out of trouble, though I suppose finding trouble is your line of work, you might say." He blinked hazily up at her, a thin ring of blue outlining his dilated pupils. "I'm getting tired of being a paramedic," Clare continued. She knew it was soothing to just hear another person's voice in the dazed state coming out of unconsciousness. He probably had a concussion as well, and that didn't help his mental clarity. "Just lie still." Of course he had no problem obeying that order.

Without giving the motion a second thought, she slipped her hands up his shirt, pulling up the fabric so she could better view his torso. To her chagrin, the laceration in his side was bleeding sluggishly, and he seemed to be in obvious discomfort over some new injury. "What is it with you and physical harm?"

He quirked half a smile in response, although she'd meant the question to be rhetorical. Still in that half-aware state between true consciousness and insensibility, he reached up and covered her hand with his as she probed his side. She paused. Heat raced up her arm at the touch of his skin….and then she gently pulled her hand away. "You do have a concussion," she murmured, holding his gaze for a moment meaningfully before examining one of the old bruises. He seemed to come to himself a little more, and she saw his fist clench on the carpet. "What hurts?"

Connor restrained himself from sighing. Stupid. "My shoulder," he replied hoarsely. "The right."

She nodded. "The one Christian threw you with." Her fingers traveled delicately across his collarbone. His gaze followed her touch intensely and she had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at him. She didn't need this distraction, and not in the form of attraction to a known vigilante, a crazy-ass wanna-be superhero who, in two days, had managed to get into more scrapes than she had in the two years she'd been back. She poked at his shoulder, a little harder than necessary.

"Ow," he said, wincing and looking at her accusingly. She kept her face blank.

"It's not separated or dislocated," Clare pronounced. "Probably just a few torn muscles and stretched ligaments. You might have cracked a rib—there's some swelling on your side that wasn't there yesterday." She fished in the closest available drawer, which happened to be her knick-knack drawer, and found a penlight. "Open your eyes." Flashing the penlight beam across Connor's pupils, she was surprised to note that the dilation reaction wasn't too sluggish. She'd expected a pretty heavy duty concussion, what with the way he'd been disoriented. "You're fine." She stood up rather hastily.

"No sympathy?" he asked in a slurred brogue, blinking up at her. With a sigh, she extended a hand.

"Come on," she said. "Back to the spare bedroom."

He took her offered hand, careful to grasp it with his left hand so that she wouldn't pull on his sore shoulder. He'd rattled the galya, he could see it in her eyes…and in some small way it gave him satisfaction. He waited for her to offer assistance, because the room was still spinning and he was quite sure he'd fall on his ass if asked to walk by himself.

"Murphy," she called, "come drag your brother's ass to the spare bedroom."

Murphy emerged from the kitchen, ice-pack still in hand, with a handsome bruise on his jaw. "What's this now?" he asked. He prodded Connor playfully with his toe, and Connor responded with a tirade of menacing curses directed at his wayward brother. Clare rolled her eyes—as her mother had said, swearing was for those who didn't have a large enough vocabulary to express themselves otherwise. She made her way to the kitchen, colorful words echoing from the hallway as Connor told his brother what he thought of starting fights with bigger men when they were both already injured.

Christian looked up as she entered the kitchen. She ignored him, pulling the refrigerator door open and surveying its contents. Settling on a handful of grapes, she leaned against the counter and pinned him with her gaze. Her best friend managed to look both sheepish and self-satisfied at once. He shrugged. "You knew I was serious."

She didn't reply, popping another purple grape into her mouth and crunching down on it with relish.

"Look, Clare," Christian continued, dropping his voice an octave. "I don't like those two. I don't like the fact that they're putting you in danger, and they upset you." His gaze narrowed. "And don't think I didn't see one of them putting the moves on you in there."

"He was half-conscious," Clare muttered, but she knew he was right. Connor had been "putting the moves" on her…and the strange thing was, she hadn't really minded. Then she reprimanded herself strictly. No involvement. Not when they were so close to the life she had tried to leave behind—the key word in that phrase being tried. Once a Marine, always a Marine. The tough pride didn't fade away, nor did the memories…which was part of the problem, she supposed. She sighed. "Anyway," she continued, rubbing the back of her neck, "now that you've got your manly urges taken care of, we can discuss what we're going to do with these two."

Christian observed her from behind an ice pack. " First of all, my manly urges aren't nearly taken care of." He grinned, a little lopsidedly due to his fat lip. Then he sobered. "You know, Clare, you could just tell them to leave. They're putting us both in danger, if what Bear has told you is true."

"How did you know it was Bear?" Clare asked sharply.

Christian rolled his eyes at her. "What other information specialist lives in Boston, close enough that you can get there on an hour and a half run?"

"I hate it when you do that," she muttered in response.

"Oh, the powers of a perceptive mind and deductive reasoning," drawled Christian.

Clare smiled a little. "So you think I should just toss them out onto the street?"

Christian put down the ice pack. "Yes."

She sighed and chewed a grape contemplatively, hesitating before she spoke. "When I went for a run today…when I was coming back, someone jumped me." She shook her head and held a hand up as Christian started forward. "He didn't hurt me, not really, just got a leg up on me and rattled my cage a bit." Her green eyes hardened at the memory. "He seemed to know who I was, and that I had something to do with those two. From what Bear told me, I assume that it's the gang that roughed them up yesterday."

Christian listened silently until she was finished. "If they know who you are, they know where you live," he said tensely.

"That's what I was about to tell you before you had to go and tell them your opinions with your fists," she shot back. He conceded her point with a nod.

"So you know what we have to do," he said.

"If we can, Chris," she replied, already moving toward the dining room. "But I don't know if we're in too deep to get out." She stopped at a locked armoire, fingers immediately going to the gleaming steel lock, and after a moment of twisting dials and a deft twist, the lock popped open and she put it to one side, opening the armoire doors. "Go get them," she said to Christian, who nodded and silently padded toward the spare bedroom. As she stood in front of the armoire, she realized she was still soaked from her run, shirt clinging to her skin with damp. In close-quarter situations where lives hung in the balance, personal comfort was superfluous. She'd learned that long ago and it was instinct now. But mixing guns and water was never a good idea. She went into the kitchen, grabbed a t-shirt from the clean laundry sitting in the basket and stripped off her wet shirt, unconcernedly walking back toward the dining room, clad in just her sports-bra.

"What the fuck?" she heard from the spare bedroom, and then the sounds of three people making their way toward her, two with very obviously unhappy steps. The twins came into view, escorted by Christian.

Connor couldn't help his eyes widening when he saw that Clare had voluntarily stripped down to her underwear—at least up top—and was absentmindedly considering the contents of the armoire, dry shirt in hand. Her skin was very pale, that inevitable end-of-the-winter-in-Boston color, and for some reason he was vaguely relieved that she didn't stave the wintry color off with a tanning-bed. She was slim, but not thin, with a bit of hip that suggested she allowed herself to indulge occasionally. Murphy reached over and tapped his twin's mouth shut as Connor's eyes roved over the muscular lines of Clare's stomach.

"You'd better keep your eyes in your head," Murphy murmured in Connor's ear with a warning pinch. Connor blinked and then rolled his eyes at Murphy, a little sheepishly.

"You'd better not be discussing what I think you're discussing," said Christian warningly, tightening his grip on their shoulders.

"Calm down and shut up," Clare said absently, eyes running over the contents of the armoire. She knew her voice had gone cold and battle-smooth, icy enough to stop a suspect in their tracks. After a moment she pulled her shirt on, over her head in one smooth movement. Her mind was somewhere else…in that calm place where nothing else mattered…she didn't feel Connor's eyes on her, or color at the suggestion contained within them. She had more important things on her mind.

Connor and Murphy came up behind Clare and both simultaneously let out wordless exclamations of disbelief and appreciation: she stood in front of an armoire of firearms, from military-grade M16s to M9 Berettas to Smith and Wessons to Brownings, all gleaming and oiled and beautiful.

"Take your pick," she said, breaking the silence and picking up a belt with twin holsters from a peg on the back of the armoire. She tightened it around her waist, over her running shorts, and picked out a slim pistol along with a heavier Beretta, sliding them into the holsters with a practiced hand.

"Mother of God," Connor murmured. Murphy stepped forward and picked his guns, looking through the scope of a sniper's rifle appreciatively.

"Quickly," Clare urged with a look at Christian. He stepped forward and chose his weapons, leaning toward the heavier ones.

"I got jumped on the way back here," she said to the room in general as the twins began inspecting different guns. Connor paused in his examination of a sniper scope. Murphy glanced her way and then continued choosing his weapons with a business-like air. She could tell he was still listening.

"So…what happened?" Connor said tensely.

"Let's just say you're lucky I understand Spanish," she replied. "This guy…he knew who I was, and that, somehow, I was involved with you two." She pressed her mouth together. "He knew I was a Marine."

"Fuck," muttered Connor.

"So," she continued over him, "I figured it was time to break out the guns." With a sweet smile she picked up a clip of ammunition and slammed it into her Beretta after a cursory glance at the safety. "Come on. To the basement."

"Are we having a sleepover?" quipped Christian devilishly as he selected a high-powered rifle.

Connor wished he could still make jokes, but his insides were twisted tighter than a hangman's knot. Honestly, it was nerve-wracking when it was just Murph he had to worry about…but now there was Clare, and Christian as well. Two innocent people dragged into their web of revenge and retribution. "Look," he said softly, "just let us go."

Clare looked at him and smiled tightly, her green eyes containing an emotion he couldn't quite pinpoint. "With the tendency you have for getting into trouble, I wouldn't take your chances out on the street."

"You're taking your chances with us all right," cautioned Connor. "This isn't a fuckin war zone, Clare. People will notice. The cops will come."

She stiffened. "Oh. Is that what you're worried about?" Her eyes turned cold as she regarded him for a breath of silence. Then she turned away, picking up a box of ammunition and hefting it under her arm as she headed toward a grey-painted door.

Murphy elbowed Connor, giving him a look that plainly said, Well, now you've done it.

Connor blinked and frowned. I don't know what I fuckin' said to make her angry but I sure as hell want to take it back, he thought at Murphy, who seemed to understand, giving him a sympathetic eyebrow quirk. Christian ushered them after her, through the grey door and down the stairs.

"Why are we headin into the fuckin basement?" asked Murphy loudly, his voice echoing.

"Because she says so," said Christian.

"No." Murphy stopped and Connor bumped into him a little, his balance still shaky. "We need the whole fuckin' story. About why you know kung fu or whatever the hell that is, and why you have fuckin guns in your dinin' room, and why we should trust you."

There was a moment of dead silence. The dank basement air wafted around them, stirred only by their breath. Clare half-turned and looked up at Murphy. "Fine. But you have to come down into the basement first. And then I get to hear yours."

Murphy spat on the hand that wasn't gripping his rifle. Christian winced as he held it out to Clare, who spat on her own hand and shook Murphy's without so much as a blink. Connor smiled a little—any galya who spit-shook without flinching was admirable in his books.

Clare restrained herself from wiping her hand on her shorts as she continued down the stairs. She would never figure out men's fascination with bodily functions, and figuring out ways to bring them into the simplest of things, like a handshake. Honestly. A tickle of foreboding and a thread of adrenaline worked its way down her spine…she wasn't too happy with the ultimatum, but if that was what it took to get the four of them out of the line of fire, then that was what it took. She could handle it. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she went immediately to check the grated window of the basement, set high up in the cinderblock walls. There was a rattling at the top of the stairs and she knew it was Christian throwing the bolts on the door. The only other exit was the storm-doors on the other side of the basement, and those were always padlocked shut.

Murphy inspected the basement, pacing with careful slow steps, his gun pointed to the ground. Cinderblock walls, unfinished, unpainted. Then he turned the corner and there was a rug, and some old dilapidated chairs with the stuffing falling out the seams, and an old Magnivox television on an aluminum card-table. There was even a hip-high fridge, whirring in an old, tired way, and a crate of bottled water sitting in one corner, along with some canned soups. A few slightly bedraggled blankets were thrown across the backs of the chairs. "Well, you have a nice little den down here."

Clare shrugged with one shoulder. "In case of a blizzard," she said absently.

"Bullshit," said Murphy in response. She looked at him sharply and he grinned, and she slowly smiled, shaking her head.

"All right," she said. "You caught me. I couldn't really help myself, after…"

"After?" prompted Murphy. When she hesitated, he said, "You promised, remember."

Clare's jaw hardened as she clenched her teeth. "After Iraq, all right?"

"Do you want to sit down?" Connor asked. "Figure they haven't started shooting yet, might as well be comfortable."

Clare and Christian took one of the oversized chairs, Christian perched on the wide armrest. Connor and Murphy took the other two chairs.

"Four years ago I was a Marine," Clare started abruptly. "It doesn't really matter what happened before that."

"Naval Academy," supplied Murphy. "The diploma is in your spare bedroom."

Clare silenced him with a frosty look. "As I was saying, it doesn't really matter what happened before that. I graduated from The Basic School in Quantico, got assigned to a unit. Since I wasn't infantry I volunteered to be trained as an emergency medic. Normally it's only enlisted, but I was a pretty vocal 2nd Lieutenant when it came to being able to take care of my people. I was in charge of a platoon. We worked in supplies, and after the grunts took Fallujah we took turns at roadside checkpoints like everyone else. They trained us up as security, and taught us how to spot IEDs on the road when we were driving in convoys." Her eyes were faraway, distant. "The closest call was when a Humvee four vehicles in front of us got hit by a suicide attack. Killed three men." She blinked, her fingers stroking the metal of her gun. Christian watched her intensely as she continued. She looked straight at the twins and swallowed hard. "I was engaged to a captain," she said roughly. "He worked in data, with the computers. Sometimes they would come out in the convoys to set up antennas for their receivers." Pause. Collect yourself. Control it, she thought. "One day we were rolling down a road in the goddamn desert on the fringe of Fallujah and this—guy—he starts running toward us, and we almost shot him but then we didn't because he didn't have a weapon and the media would crucify us—" the words tumbled out—"and that was right after that sergeant shot that woman with the white flag, that one, and that motherfucker ran right up to the convoy and threw himself in front of Dominic's Humvee and detonated his vest."

Christian looked stonily at the two brothers. Murphy raked his fingers through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck; Connor gazed at Clare with an empathetic twist in his eyes. One of his hands half-lifted, as if he wanted to touch her and offer comfort; but he tucked his arms across his chest.

"So," Clare continued, a biting tone to her voice now, "I'm the nearest one with any medical knowledge. Of the five guys in the Humvee, two are straight-up KIAs. One lost his leg and was bleeding out. He died. The driver had a sucking chest wound but we managed to seal that up with the field kit and Medevac him."

"Clare, you don't have to go on," Christian said. "You don't owe them anymore."

Clare shook her head, lips pressed tightly together. "They asked. I'm going to tell." With a deep breath she pressed on. "There were six vehicles in the convoy. The one was destroyed and then the one in front of it disabled from the blast. The one in back had its windshield blown out and two of the guys had some pretty severe facial lacerations. I think one lost an eye. Maybe an ear. I don't remember." Murphy looked a little sick. He wiped his face with one hand. "There were four of us trying to get the wounded together, and we radioed out for a helo. All in all we had eight injured. And then…there must have been a secondary timer on that goddamn vest—we didn't check the bastard, we just let him burn on the hood of that Humvee. In any case, we were all exposed when it went off. I was working on Dominic when it happened and he pulled me down. He saved my life." She could feel the wetness in her eyes but she was beyond it. "And then I was one of the wounded and I couldn't do anything else. Two others died while we waited. It was only about ten minutes until the helo arrived but…they died." She raised her chin and pulled up the sleeve of her shirt, stripping off the elastic of her fluorescent ID-card holder. Christian closed his eyes.

Clare held up her arm almost defiantly for the twins' inspection. A braided, raised rope of scar tissue ran around her bicep, striating her skin with red and white. Smaller scars snaked off around her elbow. Connor cursed himself for not noticing it before—but she'd strategically placed the ID holder, and the smaller scars weren't that apparent, not unless you knew what they were and how they had gotten there.

"Well, fuck me," said Murphy softly. Connor opened his mouth to say something and then closed it.

"I almost lost my arm," she said with a lopsided, wry sort of grin, her eyes sparkling with cutting, bitter sarcasm.

"You move it fine," pointed out Murphy.

"That's what fourteen months of physical therapy will do for you," she replied, as if she were merely remarking upon the weather. She pulled down her sleeve and picked up her gun again. Telling the story had been much easier than she'd expected. She shrugged. "Anyway. That's it."

Connor wanted badly to ask a question. His tongue itched to form the words, and he knew it was insensitive and callous. So he suppressed it. But in his mind he was agonizing over the fact that Clare had not said Dominic died. You're a fucking bastard for wanting to know, the chivalrous part of him snapped at the rest. So he kept his mouth shut. Murphy could tell he wanted to say something, but let it slide with a look that plainly said they would discuss it later, in private, if there was such a thing as privacy in the close quarters of the basement.

"Satisfied?" growled Christian dangerously.

"Yes," said Connor sensibly.

"I like you better when you act gay," said Murphy at the same time. That coaxed a smile out of Clare, at least.

"So," she said. "Your turn. Tell me, why is it we're hiding from a gang in my basement?"

"First of all," replied Murphy, "it's your own fault. If you weren't so damn honorable and merciful and virtuous you would have left us in that fuckin alley and been about your day, no harm done."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Clare interjected wryly.

"Second of all, let us get our facts straight." He turned to Connor, eyebrows raised. "Where do we start?"

Connor shrugged. "From the beginning."


	11. Let's See What These Guns Can Do

**A/N: So I had this on hiatus for an insufferably long amount of time, and I was off playing in other sandboxes, and then I saw Boondock Saints II the other night...and the boys were back in my head. I understand if you don't forgive me for letting this linger for so long, but I promise that within the next few days I'll have the next update for you all. Reviews are always welcome...even if they're just incoherent rants at me for keeping you all waiting :)**

"Start from the beginning," repeated Connor. Murphy sat back and rubbed the bridge of his nose, his sniper rifle laid across his knees and a magazine nestled in the crease between his legs. The twins exchanged a look that Clare observed with interest, pushing her own emotional turmoil into the back of her mind. She vaguely registered a pressure on her arm, and looked over to find Christian squeezing her arm in a silent gesture of support. That almost broke her wall of resolve and she had to lean against his solid warmth to forget the feeling of cold flesh, the sight of staring eyes rimmed with blood.

"Murph," said Connor. His brother, despite the fact that he was a smartass, was better at telling stories. He noticed the slight shift in Clare's body weight, the way she pressed herself into the hollow of Christian's shoulder and he found himself wishing that he was holding her, making the haunted look in her beautiful eyes fade. Fuck—he was staring, he must have been, because Murphy gave him a casual nudge as he cleared his throat in preparation to start his story.

"Well." Murphy paused to gather his thoughts. "Have you ever heard of the Lobos?"

"Gang," guessed Clare with a hint of boredom in her flat voice.

"Yeah. They're fuckin—they're a nasty group of men." Murphy made a face. Somehow the somber mood of the room dampened his enthusiasm for coarse descriptions. It was rare that he didn't swear but somehow now didn't seem the time. Something about the galya's eyes. "Awful stuff, what they do. You name it, they got their paws in it—as long as it's criminal, they're all up for it." His dark eyes sparked as he continued. "They stole this little girl and her ma came to us."

"They thought you could get her back?" Clare guessed quietly.

Murphy looked slightly annoyed at the interruption but then realized that the galya was so shaken from telling her own story, she was clutching his like a life-raft, trying to squeeze nuance and meaning out of his sparse words to keep her mind occupied. "Yeah," he replied quietly with uncharacteristic gravity. "They thought we could get her back. So, we go after these guys. The Lobos. But they were smarter than we gave them credit for. They're no street gang, they've got fu—freakin' _intelligence_. They knew about us before we knew about them."

"Right after the little girl's ma comes to us, they kill her," Connor said quietly. "Just in her apartment, not five minutes after she'd walked in th' door. And then they came for us."

"Middle o' th' night," continued Murphy. "Not like we didn't put up a fight, but…" He shrugged.

"Win some, lose some," offered Christian with a small smile. He shifted his arm around Clare's shoulder, and she leaned her head against his chest, looking suddenly tired. Connor fought a sudden surge of a hot feeling he didn't recognize at first—and then he realized it was jealousy, an emotion he wasn't accustomed to feeling. The man is fuckin' _gay_, he thought angrily, and you're still getting your knickers in a knot? He was almost disgusted by himself.

"So, they truss us up like Thanksgivin' turkeys," said Murphy, leaning back in his chair now with an air of amusement. Connor knew his twin could find humor in almost any situation, and usually he was right there with him—they were _twins_, after all, but he couldn't concentrate. He couldn't think straight. His brain seemed to be malfunctioning—thrusting images of Clare and that Adonis from the picture in the shoebox into his mind's eye—Dominic—he gritted his teeth at the name. There was something about this galya, something different. Maybe it was the way her dark blonde hair curled slightly when it was wet. Maybe it was the way her green eyes flashed angrily like emeralds in the sun when she disagreed with him. No, he corrected himself. It wasn't the way she looked. It was the way she was willing to put her life on the line for them without hesitation, something he didn't doubt she'd learned from her time in the military. Yet being in the military could only teach a person so much. Michelangelo couldn't have sculpted the David if he didn't have a block of marble to begin with—not granite, or a lump of clay. There was something intrinsic in Clare that allowed her to do what she did—just as there was something intrinsic in Murphy and him as well. Perhaps that was why he was so strongly attracted to her. He shook himself mentally and tuned in again to Murphy's story.

"So," Murphy continued, "once they drugged Connor they told me what they were going to do to him, and made me watch." His eyes darkened vengefully at the memory. "We were there for probably…two days?" He looked to Connor for confirmation.

"Don't ask me," said Connor, putting up his hands. "I was the one fuckin' knocked out."

"Fuckin' lucky," said Murphy darkly. "They brought the little girl out. Let me see her."

Clare pressed her lips together, suppressing the urge to reach over and touch Murphy's hand. "What did they do to her?"

"Nothin' I want to repeat," grated Murphy. "But it's enough to make me want to kill the fuckin' lot of them."

"What happened next?" prompted Christian, eyes bright with interest.

Murphy took a deep, shuddering breath. "Somehow they knew that killing the girl…that could hurt us worse than…worse than even them hurtin' us."

Connor tensed and looked at his brother. Murphy pressed his lips together and shook his head, rubbing his hand over his face.

"I…We...We've seen some fucked-up shit, Clare, make no doubt about it," Murphy finally grated out, his voice hoarse with an emotion that he wasn't willing to let her see. "But what they did to that poor _galya_…" In one sudden, fluid motion he stood and drove his fist into the cement wall. Connor leapt up and threw his arms around his brother, wrestling him back before he could throw another punch at the unyielding wall.

"We've killed a lot of men," Connor said, slowly releasing his twin. "But these bastards…if it was up to us, they'd die a slow, painful death."

Clare stood and looked at the two brothers, measuring the resolve in their flinty gazes. She crossed her arms over her chest, still watching them. The long moment of silence stretched between them. Finally, she gave a curt nod. "I'll help."

"Clare," came Christian's voice, laced with caution.

"Christian," she said, turning to him, "if you want…you don't have to do this."

He looked down at her and sighed, shaking his head with a rueful grin. "I'm already locked in the basement, honey. It's not like I really have a choice anymore." His grin turned wolfish. "But I'm ready to see what these guns can do." He looked down at the holsters on his hips, and then pointedly at the two brothers, his eye lingering on their muscular arms.

"For fuck's sake," muttered Murphy, massaging his knuckles.

"Did you break your hand?" Clare asked succinctly, striding forward with one hand outstretched.

Murphy evaded her reach. "Stop your cluckin', mother hen, I'm fine."

She shrugged. "Have it your way, then." One of her hands slipped down to her holster, rubbing the slick surface of the leather absent-mindedly. "How many, do you think?"

"A dozen at least," Murphy replied, his accent leavening the words.

A new hardness surfaced in Clare's eyes. "Well, that means we each have to take down at least three."

"The neighbors will call the police," pointed out Christian. "It's not like there's gun battles in this part of town very often."

"If they don't kill the neighbors first," Murphy amended grimly. "They want us. All o' Boston's gonna be laughin' at 'em for having us…and then not managing to kill us properly." He grinned humorlessly.

"Well…they did kill me…technically," Connor pointed out.

Murphy reached over and mussed Connor's hair, only intensifying his efforts when his twin threw up an arm in protest. "An' you, my dear brother, didn't have the sense to stay dead!"

"Couldn't leave you by yourself, you'd fuck everythin' all to hell," retorted Connor.

Clare read between the lines of their sarcastic exchange, and a small smile grew on her lips. She was comfortable around this type of camaraderie, the humor that helped dull the sharp fear of staring death in the face. Christian stood and uneasily paced.

"What's our plan, then?" he addressed the basement at large.

Murphy and Connor looked at each other. Murphy rubbed his five o'clock shadow, and Connor scratched the back of his head.

"Well, see…" started Murphy, clearing his throat. "Most o' the time…well, we don't really…a lot of the situations we've encountered…"

Connor put a hand out. "What my dear brother is tryin' to say is that most of the time, we don't really have a concrete plan."

"And when we do have a plan, it's based off some stupid shit he's seen in movies," Murphy rejoined triumphantly, jabbing a finger at the lighter-haired man. "He always wants to use fuckin' rope!"

"Will you shut up about the fuckin' rope?" Connor argued exasperatedly.

Clare arched her brows, looking at Christian. It was clear this was a long-standing point of contention between the vigilante brothers. She cleared her throat. "Well." They stopped and looked at her. "You'll be glad to know, Murphy, that I don't think we have a very good supply of rope down here. _But_," she continued through Murphy's smug look at Connor, "I believe in having a plan. Preferably a plan that won't get all of us killed."

"That would be a good thing," Connor agreed.

Murphy leapt up, looking about the basement. "Well, first things first, why are we trappin' ourselves down here? Fuckin' death trap, if you ask me."

"Would you prefer to have a standoff upstairs, with all the windows and such?" Clare asked.

"We'd have room to maneuver."

"This isn't an industrial yard or something where we won't be noticed, running like maniacs between buildings with blaring guns." Clare crossed her arms. "I know that being boxed in isn't ideal, but at least we'll make them come to us."

"Can we jerry-rig a bomb?" Connor said suddenly. "For the door."

"For the door?" repeated Murphy.

"To give them a nice warm welcome." Clare nodded. "The door at the bottom of the steps is pretty heavy-duty. Not exactly blast-proof, but it should contain most of it, if we set up a tripwire or a pressure trigger halfway down the first set of stairs or on the landing."

"We don't have much time," Christian interjected.

"Then let's get to it. Wouldn't want 'em to catch us with our pants down around our fuckin' ankles," Murphy said emphatically. "Let's see what you've got."

The four of them spread out throughout the basement, gathering anything that could be used in their makeshift bomb. Connor glanced over at Clare as he helped Murphy haul a small propane tank over to the bottom of the stairs. Her face was tight but determined as she sorted through boxes, pulling out containers of nails and other construction materials. Christian emerged from the far end of the room, trailing a tail of wires behind him. "We should be able to make a fuse out of this," he said, gesturing to all the electronics nestled in his arms.

"Let's get to work then." Murphy held out his hands.

"Give the bastards a good greetin'," Connor agreed grimly.

The better part of an hour later, the twins stood to survey their handiwork.

"'S ugly as fuck," Murphy said, looking down at the tangle of wires around the propane tank, studded by pods of nails and other projectiles, "but it should work like a charm."

"You're sure that fuse will work?" Clare asked doubtfully, craning to look over their shoulders.

"Don't doubt the Saints, woman," Murphy admonished her. Connor chuckled.

"All right then, let's all get back down to the basement," she replied. They filed back down the stairs and she looked back up at the homemade bomb squatting on the landing before shutting the second door and throwing the bolt.

"Should we shore up the door?" asked Christian.

Clare shook her head. "It's a strong door, and if they miscalculated the blast size, we're just doubly screwed." She shrugged.

Connor reached over and touched her shoulder. "Like my brother said, don't doubt the Saints." He grinned. "If there's one thing we do well, it's killing motherfuckers like the ones who are comin' after us."

Christian looked at the locked door and said, "I guess we'll find out if you're telling the truth soon enough."

"Should be soon," Connor agreed.

The brothers couldn't seem to sit still. Clare understood the feeling. It was hard to wait quietly for a battle to erupt around you, and she had a feeling it was doubly hard for two men who, from what she'd been told, didn't even bother with a coherent plan most of the time, much less waiting around.

Connor shifted in his chair uneasily, glancing at Clare. Murphy caught his brother's eye and shook his head emphatically, the unspoken message clear to his twin: they had already caused her enough trouble, she had already risked enough for them.

"Do you think they'll try to smoke us out?" Clare asked suddenly, her quiet voice sounding loud in the stillness of the dank basement air. "I'm not worried about the house—I have insurance, and there's really nothing that can't be replaced…but I haven't exactly dealt with a gang shootout before."

Connor rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I could be wrong, but I don't think these particular bastards are all that smart. They got the scent of blood in their noses. I think they'll come chargin' in right after it."

Clare nodded tightly and sat back in her chair, hand stroking the smooth leather of her holster again. "Why did they kidnap the girl?"

"Her da was a policeman," Murphy replied, anger swimming just beneath the surface of his voice. "Arrested a few of 'em. Was out of town for a few days, and they told the ma that if she called the cops, they'd kill the girl."

"Did they? Kill her?" Clare's lips felt numb, even though she'd seen carnage in the hot desert sun. This was different. This was Boston, this was her home. She harbored no illusions of a utopian America, but to hear about such a brutal crime firsthand was still hard.

"It mighta been better for her if they had." Murphy looked away from her. She saw his hands tighten into white-knuckled fists.

Connor shook his head. "They're animals, Clare. Motherfuckers who need to be put down like rabid dogs."

She raised her chin. "And you're Boston's self-appointed avengers, then?"

"Well, someone sure as fuck should do somethin', and we started out in it, so why the fuck not us?" Murphy asked. He crossed his legs and folded his hands behind his head. "Besides, there's a certain amount of fuckin' job satisfaction, if ye know what I'm talkin' about."

"No." Clare looked at him flatly, her eyes compromising. "I don't."

"Aw, come on now, ye were a soldier over there! Don't tell me ye didn't pull the trigger and feel good about putting some turban-headed extremist outta his misery." A slow, cocky smile spread across Murphy's lips, despite Christian's warning glance.

"It was never that simple," Clare snapped. "It should _never_ be that simple, when it comes to killing people."

Murphy opened his mouth again but Connor turned to him and hissed, "For fuck's sake, Murph, shut up fer once in yer life if ye know what's good for ye."

Clare stared at them both stonily, mulling over scathing responses, but then the floorboards above their head groaned beneath someone's weight. They all froze, and then there were the quiet sounds of guns sliding out of holsters, chambers being checked for ammunition, hammers cocked. Clare, holding a pistol in one hand, gave Christian a hard one-armed hug, and then her face went smooth and cold, the predator surfacing in her eyes. She looked at the twins, their eyes alight with peculiar excitement, a thirst for danger and vengeance, and nodded. They crouched, waiting, listening as another set of footsteps joined the first.

They strained their ears as the pair of strangers above them spoke in Spanish, but the barrier of the floor muffled the words too much for them to understand the conversation. They obviously weren't concerned about making their presence known. Christian winced as the sounds of breaking glass and thrown furniture vibrated through the basement ceiling. The gang members clearly were not happy that they hadn't caught the brothers and their supporters unawares.

"Soon," mouthed Christian. Clare nodded, walking cat-footed over to the wall so she had a better vantage point of the door at the bottom of the stairway. She held her pistol easily in a two-handed grip, her arms relaxed but ready.

Murphy raised his eyebrows at Connor, watching Clare's silent, graceful movements. "This girl knows what she's doin," he whispered to his twin, but Connor didn't take his eyes from Clare, a peculiar mixture of determination and resignation in his expression. "Conn—fuck—" Murphy grabbed for Connor's sleeve as the taller man suddenly moved forward, cursing expressively under his breath when he missed. He walked purposefully after his twin but found himself halted suddenly by a large hand planted on his chest. Christian looked down at him, all trace of playfulness gone from his face.

"If your brother has something he needs to say to her, let him," Christian said. Then he shook his head slightly. "I can't believe I just said that." He looked sharply back at Murphy. "Rule still applies. Your brother makes her cry, I make him cry."

Murphy shrugged. "Fair 'nough." He glared after his brother balefully. "Stupid git…must be goin' fuckin' soft in th' head…"

Clare's gaze didn't waver from the door, not when Connor stopped next to her, not until he cleared his throat.

"I…ah," the Irishman said.

"What?" she said guilelessly, shifting her grip on her gun.

"Well…" Connor took a deep breath. "I don't mean to be forward—we're gentlemen, Murph an' I…or at least I am, no matter what ye hear on the news. And I just wanted to…before the gunfire starts, that is…"

She looked up at him questioningly, a tendril of golden hair escaping her ponytail and brushing her cheekbone. He almost lost all capability of speech right then and there. But instead he said, "God, ye're fuckin' beautiful with that gun in your hands."

She blinked and looked down at the pistol. "I…thank you, I guess."

Connor took another deep breath, steeling himself. "I don't want to…if your fiancé is still…"

A flash of sadness surfaced in her eyes and she shook her head. "He's not."

"And are you…?" he asked breathlessly.

"I am," she answered quickly, before he could even gather himself to answer the rest of the question, and in one sudden motion he pulled her tight to his body with one arm.

"Are you sure?" he breathed, his lips inches from hers.

In answer, she tilted her chin and kissed him, gun held carefully to the side. It wasn't a long kiss, but it felt as though they'd connected a circuit, heat arcing between their bodies like white-hot lightning.

He pulled back, still holding her by her waist, and looked down at her, breathing a bit heavily just from that one short kiss. She opened her eyes and gazed at him silently, a smile uncoiling on her lips as she saw his dazed expression.

"Get a room, why don't ye," hooted Murphy, which elicited a surprised chuckle from Christian. Clare grinned at Connor, who rolled his eyes and turned to deliver an insult back to his brother, but his words were lost amid a deafening explosion that shook dust and rubble from every corner of the basement ceiling. Clare reflexively dropped to the ground, both hands going for her weapon, and she felt the solid warmth of Connor as he crouched over her protectively. Howls of pain and Spanish curses seeped under the door along with the acrid smoke, which carried with it a stench that Clare had hoped she'd never smell again: burning flesh. The smell of human flesh burning wasn't so different than grilling meat, and it was that very similarity, coupled with the knowledge that it really was a human being scorched in that fire, that made the bile rise in the back of her throat. She opened her mouth and tried to breathe without smelling, tried to push down the sickness rising from her stomach, clenching her jaw. The dust settled slowly and they rose into crouches, Connor with one hand on Clare's shoulder.

"All right?" he asked, coughing through the dust. She nodded and motioned silently to their right, where stacks of cement bags awaited the day when she and Christian started the much-planned but never acted upon landscaping project in the back yard. She trotted quickly over to the improvised cover, and Connor joined her. Glancing over to the other side of the basement, she saw that Murphy and Christian had pushed the old furniture into their own barricade. Christian gave her a nod and a cheeky smile, and Murphy winked at her.

The fire burned for a few long minutes. Heavy footsteps ran up and down the staircase, to get something to smother the fire with, Clare supposed. She adjusted her position behind the cement bags, feeling a cool calmness settle into her bones. More footsteps. The staircase groaned. Connor took out his other gun, checked the magazine and chamber, and laid his arms across the bags. "When the shootin' starts," he said to her in a low voice, "keep movin'."

She smiled grimly. "This isn't my first rodeo, Connor."

He spared a precious second to grin at her. "Yeah, but it's your first ride with _us._"

Someone kicked from the other side of the basement door. Clare breathed out slowly, adjusted her grip one last time, checked the forked sights on the pistol. One more kick and the door buckled, splintering inward.

The first Lobo to come through the door jerked as bullets from Connor's guns ripped through him. Clare sighted in on the second man, squeezing off three well-aimed rounds. Two to the chest, one to the head, she thought to herself through the deafening roar of the guns.

The Lobos poured into the basement faster than they could shoot them. After the first two went down, the ones behind them used the bodies as shields. Screamed Spanish echoed off the basement walls, intertwined with the booms of gunfire and the twins' own yelled epithets. Cement dust spurted up from the bags as one of the gang members got a fix on their position.

"Go!" shouted Connor to Clare, and she fired off two more rounds, emptying her magazine, before sliding down onto her elbows, low-crawling down the line of cement bags, silently thanking Christian for being so overenthusiastic in his procurement of home improvement supplies. Slamming a new magazine into the butt of her pistol, she found a small gap between two bags, enough for her to sight through, and picked off another Lobo. There were so many of them…a cold knot formed in the pit of her stomach and she glanced over her shoulder back at Connor. He hadn't moved, still firing determinedly from his two guns, ignoring the spray of bullets around him. She saw one of the Lobos drop to his belly behind the bloody body of the first man that Connor had killed. The man's dark eyes glinted coldly as he sighted in on Connor. Clare bared her teeth in a silent snarl and shifted the aim of her pistol, but she couldn't get a good angle on him and she whipped her gun over the stack of cement bags, half-standing as she sighted in on the bastard. The report of her own weapon deafened her, but she watched in horror, the moment suspended, as the Lobo's own weapon jerked in recoil before a spray of gore fountained out from his head, Clare's bullet finding its mark.

Connor jerked and a grimace of pain flashed across his face. He dropped behind the bags for a moment, swiftly assessing the damage. Clare slid over to him, pulling at his black t-shirt where she saw a dark stain spreading.

"'M fine," grunted Connor, sweat glistening on his dust-stained face. "Keep movin'!" And he pushed her in front of him, toward the other end of the cement bags and the jumble of other junk in the basement. She skidded across the floor, light on her feet, and he stumbled behind her, trailing blood.

There was a sudden lull in the gunfire. Clare snuck a glance over their self-made bunker, forcing herself to try and count the haphazard sprawl of bodies around the door. "Ten," she whispered fiercely to Connor. "We've taken out ten."

"Maybe they're reconsiderin'," he grated back.

"Or maybe they think they can bargain with us," she answered grimly.

Sure enough, there came an accented voice from the other side of the broken door. "We know you are there," the voice called out menacingly, "and you cannot win! You are boxed in, and it is only a matter of time!"

"How 'bout you show your ugly-ass face, fuckwad, and I'll show ye boxed in!" called out Murphy tauntingly from behind the now considerably pocked-up furniture.

Connor turned to Clare suddenly. "Do ye have your phone on ye?"

She shook her head and he motioned to his back pocket. After she pulled out the simple black flip-phone, he said, "Press speed-dial number two."

Clare wanted to ask him why he couldn't do it himself, but she saw how alarmingly limp his left arm hung, how his finger was loose on the trigger of the gun in his left hand. He wanted to keep one gun trained on the door in case a gangster made an appearance. She put down her own weapon, crouching behind the cement bags as she flipped open the phone.

"Jesus Christ, this thing's a fossil," she muttered to herself at the green-neon display and boxy text. But she pressed speed-dial number two and held the phone up to Connor's ear, careful not to impede the freedom of his good arm. She heard the ring tone once, twice, three times and then a male voice answered.

"Greenly," Connor said in a quick, low voice into the phone. "We got a bit of a situation here…the Lobos got us pinned down in a swank house uptown…we'd appreciate a fuckin' helpin' hand." Connor grinned slightly at Greenly's response. "Our guardian angel's gonna give you the address." And he nodded to Clare. She cupped the phone against her ear as a sputter of gunshots erupted, waiting for another lull, and she quickly gave her address to Greenly, whoever the hell that was. There was a terse "Got it" from the other end, and then the line went dead.

"Who was that?" she fairly shouted at Connor as the gunfire erupted again.

He didn't reply, focused entirely on using his dwindling ammunition to the best advantage.

"Goddammit," she muttered. How were Murphy and Connor doing? She couldn't see them amid the jumble of furniture they'd pulled together, but her stomach lurched when she spied a stain of scarlet on the floor by their improvised barrier.

The Lobos had managed to drag their dead into a makeshift wall. The sight of it was sickening, and the smell of blood in the air tugged at the memories in the back of Clare's mind. She spied another Lobo slinking along the wall, trying to maneuver into better position so he could fire on Murphy and Christian. Without a second thought she stood and fired three bullets into him, her aim dead-on, and as she dropped back down she felt the hot tracery of a bullet-graze on her upper arm. She grinned at Connor when he saw the blood on her sleeve. "Gonna have a matching scar, looks like," she shouted at him.

They worked in a haze of bullets and dust and blood. Clare cursed under her breath when she pulled the trigger and her gun merely gave a hollow click. She tossed it aside and drew the gun from her second holster. They were going to be out of bullets soon, and that was never, ever a good thing in the middle of a gunfight.

Two more Lobos dropped. How many men were the gangleaders going to throw at them? she wondered, tasting the tinge of desperation in the back of her throat. The speaker had been right—they were holed up, they were boxed in. When they ran out of bullets, they were screwed.

And then, through the gunfire, she heard the most glorious sound in the world: police sirens, wailing away in all their glory. But then she looked sharply at Connor. "The police will arrest you," she half-shouted. He nodded, weariness showing in his face, and she squeezed off another shot before looking at him in confusion. "That's who you called? Why?"

"Better than all of us…bein' killed," he grunted.

And she knew from his eyes that when he said _all of us,_ he really meant, _you. Better than you bein' killed._ She couldn't let him be taken down because of her. So she yelled to the Lobos, "Hey, hear that? The _policio_, they're coming for _you_, _entiende?"_

She held her breath, hoping the gamble would work. There was a pause, and then curses.

"Next time," came that same heavily accented voice, "you won't have your _puta_ to protect you! Next time, we will kill you!"

"Aye, mebbe the third time's the charm!" Connor called over the bags.

"Or mebbe go fuck yerself!" came Murphy's voice from the other side of the basement.

Clare sank down to the pavement, gritting her teeth against the hot lines of pain radiating from her arm. The sirens wailed closer. "Think they're gone?" she whispered.

"Probably," Connor said, his voice tight with pain.

"All right then. Christian," she called.

"Clare?" came the response. "Don't _ever, ever_ pick up man-candy off the streets again, I don't _care _how hot they are, they're not worth a gun-battle with gangsters!"

She chuckled a little, feeling dizzy as the adrenaline drained from her body. "Noted. Do you think you're up to hauling them out to the garden shed?"

Connor looked at her sharply.

"Can't have you being arrested," she said quietly with a smile.

"A few scratches," said Christian, emerging from behind the splintered furniture supporting a hobbling Murphy, "but he's worse off."

"Murph?" said Connor questioningly, lurching up to inspect his twin.

"Got me in the leg," Murphy said, conducting his own inspection. "Y'need some pressure on that chest shot, Conn."

Clare quickly assessed Murphy's injury. He was losing a lot of blood, but the bullet hadn't hit an artery. Christian had already tied a makeshift bandage tightly around the wound. Connor worried her a bit more, with the wound to the upper left chest, but he wasn't bleeding out either, and they simply didn't have time as the sirens wailed closer. It sounded like they were at the top of the street.

"Go," Clare said quickly.

"Greenly, he's the detective you'll want to talk to," Connor informed her quickly.

"Good motherfucker even though he's a cop," added Murphy.

"If he's not there, Doll or Duffy should be," Connor finished.

"All right, all right," she said. "Come on." She helped haul them to the other end of the basement and quickly dialed in the combination for the lock on the chained storm-doors. They opened with a protesting screech. Christian half-carried Murphy up the steep steps, and Clare tugged on Connor's good arm. She watched them start to stumble across the back yard, toward the half-hidden shed, and then she closed and locked the storm-door again with trembling fingers. She raced back down into the basement, grabbing all the guns that Connor and Murphy had used, wiping them clean with a rag and firmly wrapping her own fingers around them instead.

She stood for a moment and surveyed the horrific carnage in the basement of her upscale Boston home. Then she settled back down behind the cement bags to wait for the police.


	12. Raccoons

**Short and sweet, this chap is kind of a bridge between the action in the basement and when Clare gets to see the boys again. Enjoy!**

Detective Greenly stood in front of the corpses of the Lobos and rubbed a hand over his face. "Well, they weren't kiddin'," he muttered to himself. There had been no gunfire when they had entered the house, and so the detective had ventured down into the basement, gun drawn, but not really expecting any living being to greet him. That was mostly how it was when he helped the boys with clean-up, though to their credit they'd never called him after that first fiasco…not until now. And he figured out why very quickly, when a slim woman stood slowly from behind a self-made, bullet-battered barricade of cement bags.

"Detective Greenly?" she asked him, holding both hands up so he could see she was unarmed.

"Yeah," he said, carefully stepping over a dead Lobo and crossing the basement gingerly, avoiding the pools of blood spreading across the floor.

"I think…we have certain mutual friends," she said carefully, looking at him with clear grey eyes.

"Yes, ma'am, I believe we do." Greenly stuck his thumbs in his belt and tried to look professional.

"I'm glad they called you," Clare continued in a quiet voice. "For a while there I wasn't sure whether we were going to make it."

Greenly looked over his shoulder at the carnage and back at the woman, raising his eyebrows expressively. "Looks to me like you had a good start."

She shrugged, and he noticed the blood sliding down her arm. Holding out a hand, she offered, "I'm Clare. Clare McDonough."

Greenly grinned—a little goofily, Clare thought in amusement. "Trust 'em to find another Irishman. I mean…Irishwoman.." He trailed off, looking vaguely confused.

Clare shrugged again. "I helped them out a little, and I got mixed up in all this."

There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs and she looked at the detective sharply.

"Just stay quiet and let me handle this," the detective told her, and then a steady stream of policemen filled the basement. Clare dutifully held her silence.

Another detective came up to Greenly. "What's it lookin' like?"

"Home invasion and self defense," Greenly replied.

The new detective, baby-faced and obviously fresh on the job, looked at Clare and then back at the pile of bodies. "Self defense?" he repeated uncomprehendingly.

"The Lobos obviously mistook Miss McDonough here for someone she is not," Greenly continued.

Clare cleared her throat quietly with a questioning glance at Greenly. He nodded slightly. "I was out for a run earlier today," she said, trying to make her voice a little shaky, "and one of them…or I think it was one of them, they spoke Spanish…they jumped me in the park."

"What did they say?" the new detective asked her.

"I don't know…I don't speak Spanish very well," Clare replied, which was half the truth. She didn't speak any foreign language as well as she wanted.

"And why didn't you call the police after that incident?"

"I…I thought it would be the end of it. I didn't know they were serious. I thought it might've just been some teenagers out for a prank."

"Some of them do like to scare pretty girls to get their rocks off," Greenly said sagely.

"And so what happened then?"

"I came back from my run, and I saw a couple of strange guys driving by, multiple times. It freaked me out a little, so I came down here."

"With your extensive collection of weapons?" the baby-faced detective asked dryly.

"I was deployed over in Iraq," Clare said with a hint of defensiveness in her tone. The detective raised his eyebrows in surprise. "With the United States Marines. I have my combat tour awards upstairs, if you'd like to look." Her voice had turned hard and flinty. Even Greenly looked impressed.

"And why didn't you call police when you saw these strange men driving by your home?" the young detective continued doggedly, despite Greenly's glare.

"What was I supposed to say? I get a little…nervous now and then. I've taken my guns down into the basement a few times, to tell the truth. Nothing happened the other times. This time, it did, and…" She looked at Greenly. "I called as soon as I got a chance to breathe."

"I see." The young detective scribbled something fervently.

"Jones," said Greenly, taking the younger man's arm firmly, "go and call Doll and Duffy. Tell 'em to bring the special forensics team."

"Special forensics team, sir?" Jones repeated in confusion.

"They'll know what I mean," Greenly assured him with a condescending smile. Jones looked at him in puzzlement for a second but then picked his way back through the mess. There were other officers working industriously, outlining the bodies in chalk and putting up police tape and marking evidence.

"Is this going to be a problem?" Clare whispered to Detective Greenly. "They told me you could be trusted."

Greenly swelled a little at the compliment. "I can be. We can be." He leaned in a little closer and said with a confidential air, "We've covered for them before."

"I figured as much." Clare nodded. Greenly went to turn away, and she said quickly, "Oh, Detective? You might want to keep your men away from the garden shed out back. There's…there's a nest of particularly nasty raccoons in there."

"Raccoons," Greenly repeated.

"Um. Yes. Raccoons. I know I should've called animal control ages ago, but you know, they're kind of cute, with their little masks…and all," she finished lamely.

Greenly smiled. "I'll make sure the…raccoons…aren't disturbed." He paused. "I'm going to have to ask you to wait here. They're going to want to take your statements and patch you up, and we're going to have to figure out how to handle the media circus that's going to be outside once they get wind of this."

Clare blanched. She hadn't thought of that. "If it's all the same to you, Detective, I'd really rather not have my picture in all the papers. After all, the Lobos won't take kindly to a girl who killed twelve of their members."

"Fourteen," corrected Greenly. "Two were incinerated."

"Oh," Clare replied a bit weakly. "Yeah…I had a propane tank and a toolkit on the landing…one of their bullets must've set it off…"

"Right." Greenly finally turned and made his exit, going to search for Doll and Duffy. Damn, this was going to be a hard clean-up, but he couldn't deny that he got a little excited every time the boys called him. Which wasn't often, but still. He was part of their daring vigilante actions, in a very small way. "Hey," he called out to a squad of men making their way toward the back yard. "Stay away from the garden shed, owner says there's a bunch of rabid raccoons inside."

"Raccoons, sir?" repeated one of the men disbelievingly.

"Yep," replied Greenly with a grin. "Raccoons."


	13. Be a Good Girl

**I just downloaded the Boondock Saints II soundtrack. (Sigh). I am so screwed. These boys are so deep in my head it's not even funny right now. I promise they'll be back in the next chapter...though they are discussed many times in this one, they're hiding out back...with the raccoons in Clare's shed...**

Somehow, the trio of detectives entrusted with keeping the secret of the Saints managed to fend off the media that had quickly gathered in front of Clare's house. She sat in the basement and gave her statement—the same story she had told Greenly and the fresh-faced Jones. Her conscience didn't even grumble at her omissions—lying by omission was still a sin, and she knew it, but she had no qualms about protecting Connor and Murphy. Not after what they'd been through. Not now that she knew what they did for Boston, even though she still didn't approve of cold-blooded killing. But she approved of it enough, she supposed, to want to protect the two brothers that she had dragged off the streets. After she told her story to the fourth policeman, she was beginning to believe it herself.

A pair of paramedics wrestled a gurney down the stairs, and with much cursing under their breath they lifted it over the tangle of bodies. When she realized they were coming for her, she stood quickly. "That's really not necessary…" she began, but the blood rushed from her head, leaving her swaying dizzily. One of the paramedics caught her with a firm grip on her uninjured arm, easing her back down to the floor.

"Steady, miss," he said in a warm, trustworthy voice.

She nodded woozily and blinked up at him. "Sorry. Just stood up too fast."

"Well, you've lost a bit of blood too, and I'm sure your adrenaline was pumping pretty high during the…fight," finished the paramedic. They all knew that "fight" was not a suitable word to describe what had occurred in her basement. She made a face. What would be the word? Slaughter? Shootout? Gunbattle? Showdown? Her head started to hurt.

"Could you just clean me up, please?" Clare asked wearily, looking at the paramedic who was still holding her arm. His appearance matched his voice: solid, reliable, somehow honest. Not a memorable face, but a face that inspired trust nonetheless.

"Y'know," the paramedic said conversationally as his partner handed him a squeeze-bottle of saline solution to flush the bullet-graze, "first time the cops have had to come outside o' Southie for one of these scenes."

The paramedic's accent was vaguely familiar. Through the pounding in her head, she recognized the familiar lilt of an Irish accent, much more Americanized than both Connor and Murphy, but still there under the veneer of South Boston.

"What do you mean, _one of these scenes_?" Clare asked quietly, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. She didn't care if the kid had an honest face.

"This might sting," he cautioned before squirting the saline onto Clare's arm, mopping the pink fluid up with a thick pad of gauze. He glanced at her when she didn't even hiss, and found her staring at him with hard eyes. He glanced over his shoulder at his partner, who was helping a cop check all the Lobos bodies for vital signs.

"You should tell him that's a waste of time," Clare said.

"I know it is," he said, turning back to her arm. He met her gaze with green eyes. "They never leave anyone alive."

"I don't know who you're talking about," she snapped, too hotly for her own liking. "The only person in this basement when—it—happened was _me._" She dared him to contradict her, eyes blazing.

"I know," he replied simply, unperturbed. "D'ye want stitches or glue? I can do either. Or we can take you to the hospital."

"I don't need a fucking hospital," she hissed, and then had the grace to look ashamed at her outburst. "Sorry. It's just that…I've been through a lot…today."

"Stitches or glue?" he asked again.

"Which won't leave a scar?" she asked with a weak attempt at a grin.

"Glue it is," he said, digging in his bag. "My name's Luke, by the way. Luke Donovan."

Clare almost rolled her eyes. Instead she said, "Jesus, how many Irishman am I going to run into today?" Then she realized the slip of tongue and shut her mouth, compressing her lips into a thin white line.

Luke glanced up at her as he moved in close, situating her arm to put the graze in the best light as he uncapped the tube of Surgi-glue. She thought she saw a spark of amusement in his eyes. "Well, you look like you could have a bit o' the blood in ye, too."

"Last name's McDonough," Clare muttered, heat rising in her cheeks.

"That's why then. We just can't keep away from a good Irish lass. Reminds us of home." He grinned cheekily at her, putting the cap back on the glue. "There. Let me just wrap that up for ye."

The glue stung more than she expected, and to her irritation her eyes began to water. She swiped at them with her good arm—or her former bad arm, now her good arm for the moment, she corrected herself wryly.

"If I may say, that's some mighty fine shootin' for a young woman of substance," Luke continued conversationally, ripping off a short length of surgical tape.

"First of all, of course it's fine shooting," Clare replied. "Marines."

"One of the cops said as much," Luke said, nodding.

"Second of all, I don't appreciate being called a young woman of _substance_," she finished dryly.

He chuckled. "Well then, ye're all patched up. Just let me get the form for ye to sign…ah, I left it in the van. Hey, Pete, wouldja mind runnin' out to the van and grabbin' me the release forms?"

His partner grumbled but picked his way back to the stairwell, clearly relieved to be heading away from the gore. Luke made a show of putting away all his supplies, surreptitiously checking to see that all the other policemen were busy. Then he turned back to Clare. "Look. I know it was just you down here." He winked and took a card out of his pocket. "But I drink at McGinty's every now and again…well, every night I'm not on call, that is…and I can stop by later tonight once all this has cleared out. Or…if ye need to go to a hotel, I know some safe ones."

"McGinty's?" she repeated stupidly, taking the card. Then she shook herself a little. "Yeah…um, I think I'm probably going to head to a hotel tonight. I don't know…are any of the meds you're going to give me—" she looked at him significantly—"going to make it difficult for me to drive?"

"Definitely," he said, extracting a few blister-packs of pills from his bag.

"Then I'd appreciate a ride…maybe you could pick me up a block over, the street behind the house? Just in case the media is still hanging around," she said carefully. "And I might need…more meds then."

"How bad is the pain? Where does it hurt?" he asked.

"Upper left shoulder, and right thigh," she replied.

H e nodded. "Probably muscle strains from all the shooting."

"Probably," she agreed. The coded conversation was beginning to get exhausting.

Then there was a commotion over by the steps, and a slim man in a sharply pressed suit and immaculate white shirt, over which he wore a stylish trenchcoat, swept down the stairs. Clare watched in amused amazement as he made his entrance as delicately as a debutant, taking care not to step in any blood with his shiny leather shoes. His sharp, lined face exhibited an uncanny intelligence, and his eyes lit up when he saw her from across the room.

"Ah," he said in a voice slightly higher than she'd expected, "so here is the hero of the moment." He paused. "Or…heroine. Excuse me, miss." He smiled charmingly.

"I…who are you?" Clare asked.

He inclined his head with a gentlemanly air. "Agent Smecker, FBI. Pleased to meet you." He extended one hand, and Clare started to stand to shake hands, but he waved her off. "No, no, stay seated, please. How silly of me." And he paused, turning to survey the carnage with a contemplative, almost beatific look upon his face. He turned back to her. "Beautiful work," he said with half a smile.

She stared up at him silently.

"Of course I'm sure you've been rather…traumatized by recent events," he continued. "I see that Donovan here has patched you up quite nicely. And I hear you've cooperated with our policemen very willingly." He settled down in front of Clare on his haunches. "You called Detective Greenly directly?" he asked intently.

She regarded him warily. "I…yes."

"And how exactly did you know the good detective's number?"

"Through…mutual acquaintances," she answered through numb lips. Was this man in league with the three detectives, or had she just blown all of their cover? Her heart beat so hard it hurt as she waited, watching his expressive face.

"I see," he said, nodding. "And are those…mutual acquaintances…safe?"

"What kind of question is that?" she stuttered.

He tilted his head. "Be a good girl and answer."

"As safe as they can be right now," she whispered.

At that, he nodded briskly and stood. "Good. Now," he said, raising his voice and turning away from her, "someone get me the goddamned forensics team that was supposed to be here half an hour ago! For chrissakes, it's a miracle that you all know how to wipe your own asses!"

Clare raised her eyebrows at the slender agent's sudden change in demeanor. She had to suppress a smile when he turned back to her, clasping his hands together. "Thank you for your cooperation, Ms…?"

"McDonough. Clare McDonough," she supplied.

"Ms. McDonough," he finished gracefully. "I will try to keep your name out of the papers for as long as possible, but you know the media around here. They don't know a donut from their own assholes but anything to do with the Saints and they're swarming like a bunch of fucking killer bees." He stopped himself. "Pardon my French."

"But sir," said Clare in her best innocent voice, "like I told Detective Greenly and several other of your officers…" She blinked up at him with wide eyes. "I was the only one down here. This has nothing at all to do with the Saints."

He grinned briefly at her. "Christ, at least they found a decent liar."

She smiled back and then he turned, striding away and wreaking havoc on the small knot of officers gathered by the stairway. Then she looked down at the card that Luke Donovan the EMT had slipped into her hand, and she knew that as long of a day as it had been already, it was only going to get longer.


	14. Dangle the Carrot

**Hello all! Well, I've been getting into the spirit of St Patty's Day, so that means an extra long chapter! Hopefully I'll have another one up before the actual holiday, but just in case, happy St Patrick's Day everyone! Hopefully you get to enjoy being Irish for a day. :) Enjoy!**

Clare began to get restless. Each minute felt like an eternity as she watched the focused activity in her basement. The jump-suited forensics team lifted bodies into matte black bags and gathered the evidence marked by the police that had been first on the scene, sliding misshapen bullets into neatly labeled evidence bags. They took swabs from every corner of the room, every trace of blood they could find. She wondered how Agent Smecker and the three detectives were going to be able to cover the Saints' involvement in the shootout. A cold feeling settled into the pit of her stomach. If someone figured out that she had lied, she could go to jail for a very long time. It wasn't a reassuring thought, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She'd set her course and now she'd have to sail it, come hell or high water.

Detective Greenly pushed his way through the throng of the forensics team, holding two Styrofoam cups and trailing two other detectives. He grinned a little nervously when he saw Clare, and he offered her one of the Styrofoam cups. "Jones went for coffee, and we got an extra for you."

"How thoughtful, Detective Greenly," she replied, smiling as she took the cup.

The short, rather rotund detective standing behind Greenly cleared his throat.

"Oh, yeah, this is Duffy and Dolly," Greenly said quickly with a vague and unenthusiastic wave in his colleagues' general direction.

"Pleased to meet you. Clare McDonough," she said, sipping gingerly at the coffee.

"I grabbed some extra creamer and sugar," Greenly said quickly, fumbling in his pocket. "Or—I mean, Jones grabbed them, and I…well, here."

"Thanks." Clare took two creams and two sugars. The coffee wasn't bad but she needed something to keep herself from crashing even harder after the adrenaline completely drained from her system.

"Um, Ms. McDonough? We're gonna need to bag your weapons," the detective that Clare thought was Dolly said.

"Oh. Of course. Um, there's these four here…wait, no there's eight. Sorry. I used so many I just lost track." She smiled up at them sweetly.

The three detectives looked down at the pile of guns and then at her, almost as one, with very similar expressions of disbelief.

"You've gotta be shittin' me," Duffy muttered under his breath. "Eight fucking guns? Who's gonna believe it was all her?"

"They're gonna believe it, dipshit," said Dolly, "because that's what we're gonna _tell_ em. Official fucking statement. That mean anythin' to you?"

"Watch your language," Greenly reprimanded Dolly, looking at Clare significantly. Dolly rolled his eyes and gave Greenly a look of disgust.

"C'mon, we better get to work insteada makin' googlie-eyes at the witness," he said caustically.

Greenly choked on his swallow of coffee and had to put up a hand to his mouth. Clare had to fake a cough to conceal her sudden chuckle. Dolly and Duffy snapped on rubber gloves and bagged each gun individually while Greenly oversaw their work, trying to regain some modicum of dignity. Clare sipped at her coffee and watched the show in amusement.

Smecker swept in and out of the basement, alternately harrying the forensics team with creative and colorful swear-laced metaphors and contemplating the scene in rapt silence. At one point he took out a pair of ear-buds from inside his jacket, threading them under his trench-coat up to his ears. He stood in the middle of the basement and…._conducted_. Clare watched in fascination as the FBI agent slid into some sort of trance, his eyes traveling over the bloody crime scene dreamily. His gaze never settled directly on her, but it traveled to where she and Connor had taken refuge behind the cement bags, and then over to the pockmarked furniture, and back again. She rubbed her arm, wishing the EMT hadn't wound the bandage so tightly.

The forensics team had almost finished bagging the bodies when Smecker delicately removed the ear-buds, one at a time, tilting his head slightly. He coiled the cord neatly and tucked them away, took a deep breath, and then turned to the forensics team. "I have analyzed this entire scene, interviewed the sole witness and reconstructed the gun-battle _in my head_ in less time than it takes you fuckwads to bag fourteen bodies! Less ass-grabbing and more bagging, if you _please_!" He pivoted neatly and said in an aside to Clare, "Not that I mind ass-grabbing, Ms. McDonough, but something should be said for efficiency in this case."

Clare suppressed a smile. She was beginning to understand the twins' chagrin at Christian's antics. She looked down at the card in her hand and stood. "Agent Smecker?"

He smiled at her and spread his hands. "Please, Ms. McDonough, call me Paul."

"All right…Paul," she said, raising her eyebrow a little. "The EMT that treated me earlier, Donovan…in your _personal_ opinion, can I trust him?"

"Well, depends what you're trusting the kid with," the FBI agent replied, surveying her with sharp eyes. "He hasn't been with the department long."

"So you're not comfortable with the idea of him giving me a ride later tonight?" she asked.

"You're a pretty girl," he said lightly. "You could get lotsa rides, if that's what you wanted."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Can we keep this at least a _little_ professional, _Agent Smecker_?"

He chuckled. "Spunk. The boys know how to pick 'em." He raised his chin and looked at her, considering. "It's tough to judge the new recruits, sometimes. Sometimes they're lookin' for a piece of ass, sometimes they're lookin' to be a hometown hero."

"Hometown hero?"

"They want in," Smecker said, lowering his voice. "Donovan doesn't have permission to join the club, Ms. McDonough. Now, if your interest in him is purely…recreational…" He raised an eyebrow.

"Please." She crossed her arms.

"Then, assuming non-recreational interest, I would say that this Donovan kid is sniffing too close to your little nest of raccoons," Smecker said, using two fingers to pantomime a walking man. "I'm guessing he's going out on a limb, and he thinks he can nab himself an exclusive membership in our little club by offering his services, as they are."

"I'm not sure I like being in this little club," Clare muttered.

"Oh, but you're a certified gold member, Clare," he said, letting his voice linger over her name.

She glowered at him. "You know, you come off as an asshole."

"Why, thank you," he said, splaying his hand over his heart. "I'm touched. Really."

Sighing as she realized that she would get nowhere with banter, she said, "So what should I do? About Donovan? He's going to come around tonight, I'm pretty sure of it."

"Do what all good girls do when they're backed into a corner," Smecker suggested as he turned. The forensics team was wrestling the last body onto a gurney, and the crime scene photographer gave the FBI agent a curt nod, lowering his camera and heading for the stairs.

"And what's that?" Clare called after him.

"Kick him in the balls, kiddo. Kick him in the balls," Smecker answered over his shoulder with a grin, and then he followed the team up the stairs, leaving Clare alone in the basement. She stared after him, then surprised herself by laughing. She sat on the cement bags and laughed until tears pricked her eyes and her sides ached.

"Kick him in the balls," she murmured to herself, swiping at her eyes with one hand. She looked around the now-empty basement, the police caution-tape still stretched across the doorway and the chalk outlines on the cement floor, darkened by splashes and smears of blood. They'd kindly left her a set of shoe-covers, and she slipped them on over her sneakers before picking her way to the door. She ducked under the yellow police-tape and had to leap three stairs with the help of the banister, because they were blackened and broken from the twins' improvised bomb. Wrinkling her nose at the smell of propane and burnt flesh, she hopped up the rest of the damaged stairs as quickly as she could, taking a deep breath only when she'd closed the basement door behind her. She gingerly removed the stained shoe-covers, although she realized when she surveyed the living room that a bit of blood really wouldn't have made any difference in the mess. The windows had been smashed, and all the beautiful furniture ravaged in the Lobos' rage. Taking a steadying breath, she slipped through the disaster, pushing aside the wreckage of a chair and wrestling the twisted remains of her beautiful table to the side before she found what she was looking for, tipped over and scratched but mercifully intact: her sturdy black medical case. Once again she blessed the fact that she'd chosen a sturdy tool-case to hold her medical supplies.

She detoured to her bedroom to grab a sweatshirt, and found that it was untouched. It was strange, going from the carnage of the basement and the wreckage of the living room to a part of the house that looked as if nothing at all had happened. Setting the medical kit on the floor, she pulled a sweatshirt over her head, and then grabbed three more, stuffing them into a backpack. She doubted either of the twins would fit into her t-shirts, so she slipped across the hall and raided Christian's closet, thinking ruefully that she would _definitely_ hear about this when she discovered that the only black t-shirts Christian kept stocked were Armani. With a shrug, she stuffed three of those into the backpack too. Although—and the thought made her grin to herself a little devilishly—she wouldn't mind seeing Connor without his shirt. Or without a lot more than his shirt.

"Look at you, going all weak-kneed because he's a good kisser," she muttered to herself as she slung the backpack over her shoulder and picked up the med kit. She detoured to the kitchen to add bottled water and granola bars to the backpack, along with the heavy-duty flashlights she kept in the cabinet in case of power outages. Zipping up the backpack, she surreptitiously glanced out the front window—there was one lone media van left out front. To her relief she saw Detective Greenly sitting on the hood of his unmarked car and munching on a donut, staring down the reporter in the media van. Those two cars were the only ones left out front, so she let herself out the back door and walked casually across the back yard, though her entire body vibrated with tension, alert to any unusual sound or movement. She reached the shed without incident and resisted the urge to glance around suspiciously as she tried the knob. It was locked, and she fished out her key, slipping it into the lock.

The interior of the shed was dark as she shut the door behind her. For once she was glad the shed didn't have any windows. "It's me," she said quietly into the darkness, slipping the backpack from her shoulder. Christian switched on the camping lamp, throwing the shed into sudden and almost blinding relief.

"All the cops are gone," she explained quickly before they could ask any questions. "Greenly, Dolly and Duffy were here, and so was Agent Smecker…Oh, God." She couldn't help herself. There was so much blood, between the two of them, and she couldn't tell where one twin's bleeding stopped and the other began. She shoved the medical kit at Christian, who took it without comment and set it on the floor next to the pale and bloodied twins.

"Christian?" she asked.

"I'm not hurt," he answered. "A bit of a graze on the ribs, but definitely not worse than yours. It's already stopped bleeding." He lifted his t-shirt cursorily with one hand so she could see the bloody line tracked across his side. Her stomach lurched, but he was right, it wasn't bleeding anymore, and they had much more dire problems. She reached behind her, opening the door and locking it from the outside before closing it again. Dropping the backpack, she moved forward, to the opposite side of the brothers than where Christian was busily selecting syringes from the kit.

Connor opened his eyes and smiled up at her. "Glad t'see…y'finally made it."

"It should all be taken care of. The whole…shootout thing," she said, her eyes widening at the sight of Connor's chest. He was shirtless, but oh, she hadn't wanted to see him like this _again_.

"'S not as bad as it looks," he slurred.

"Shut up, Conn, fer once," Murphy said from his other side, propping himself up on his elbows. Clearly, he'd come out the better for wear this time as well, and Clare realized he knew it. Murphy's eyes carried a painful guilt.

"You're not wearing pants," she said in surprise when she surveyed Murphy and found him clad only in his dark briefs.

"Intelligent observation," he said in his lilting accent.

Clare waited for Christian to make a cheeky comment about how he'd finally gotten Murphy out of his pants, and her forehead creased in a frown when her friend continued digging through the medical kit studiously.

"Ye're just lucky I wasn't commando," Murphy continued, desperate to fill the silence. He glanced down at Connor.

"We need to get you out of here," Clare murmured, touching Connor's arm.

"Here," said Christian, handing a syringe to her. "Make yourself useful." He drew another dose from the small glass vial, tapping at the syringe to make sure there were no bubbles.

"What's it?" Connor struggled to look at the syringe.

Clare looked at Christian.

"Morphine," he said quietly. Murphy crossed his arms and glared when Christian reached for him.

"Don't make me hold you down," Christian told him. "You'll be of no use to Connor if you go into shock."

"Would've by now, anyway," Murphy retorted.

"Murphy," Clare said softly, with half a sigh.

The darker-haired twin glared at her. Then he shook his head, offering his bare arm to Christian. "Fine. For fuck's sake, fine."

Clare turned her attention back to Connor. He was watching her, eyes slightly glassy but still alert. He shifted his arm, unable to hide the strain that came over his face as he moved. She checked the syringe and bent over him, finding the vein in the soft crease of his elbow. A bit of the tension eased from his body as she slowly compressed the syringe.

"We should come here more often…when we got shot, Murph," he said, half a grin hovering on his lips. "She's got the good drugs."

"If I stop giving you the good drugs, will you stop getting shot?" Clare asked him, pulling a sweatshirt out of the backpack and rolling it into a pillow, lifting Connor's head gently and sliding it beneath him.

"No promises," muttered Murphy darkly.

She sat back on her heels, one hand still touching Connor's shoulder as she looked across the twins to Christian, asking him with her eyes what she was afraid to ask out loud.

"They should be in a hospital," he answered, nodding.

"No hospitals," the twins said together.

"Shut up," Christian told them.

Murphy looked at Christian askance. "He's a scary motherfucker when he's not actin' queer, eh?"

Clare chuckled despite herself. She picked up Connor's mangled shirt and wiped away the blood from his chest.

"I had a bandage on it, but it was bleeding through," Christian told her. "I was holding pressure til you came in."

"Fuckin' heavy bastard too," gasped Connor as Clare put her own weight on his shoulder. He managed half a smile. "But ye're jest right, love."

"Stop the sweet-talking," she scolded him, but she felt her cheeks heat. God, even flat on his back and half-delirious, he could still flirt a blush out of her. But then the heat faded and she felt the sick knot curdling in her stomach. "Are you sure I can't convince you two to go to a hospital? Maybe Smecker could—"

"No," interrupted Murphy firmly. "No matter who's breathin' down their necks, docs have gotta report gunshot wounds. And docs all talk to each other…even if Smecker convinced 'em to keep it mum, it'd get out eventually. Then your whole story would be shot to hell. Literally."

She clenched her jaw and met Murphy's eyes. "This is worse than before, Murphy. This isn't just a cut with a piece of glass in it…"

"I can hear ye too," Connor murmured from beneath her.

"I know," she said softly. "You're both stubborn pigheaded idiots." She glanced at Murphy. "Just so we're clear on that."

"Crystal," Murphy replied with a hint of his signature smirk.

Christian rubbed a hand across his face. "Well, glad as I am that we clarified all that, the fact still remains that even if you two don't like hospitals, you're either going to end up there or someplace else far colder and less pleasant in the near future."

"What th'hell is he talkin' about?" Murphy looked at Clare and Connor.

"The morgue, dear brother," Connor said. Murphy made a sound of derision and settled back onto one elbow.

"Even if we have the knowledge, we don't have the medical equipment," Christian continued doggedly. "You've both lost a lot of blood. You probably need a transfusion, or at the very least a sterile saline drip. And you both have bullets still in you."

Murphy shrugged one shoulder. "Not the first pieces o' lead we've kept as souvenirs of our work."

"We don't have the medical equipment," Clare said slowly, "but I know how we could get some."

"God, they're rubbing off on you," Christian said in mock disgust. He hit Murphy's shoulder lightly. "Look at what you've done! You've corrupted her!"

"Maybe she could do with a little corruptin'," Murphy replied devilishly.

Clare held up her free hand. "Shut up, both of you, and let me think." After a long moment of silence, she said, "The paramedic that treated me offered to help. I'm pretty sure he suspected your involvement…he sounded a bit Irish but I can't be sure, he could have just been a good actor. Agent Smecker said he's new to the department and probably just wants to 'join the club.'" She emphasized the last phrase with air quotation marks.

Murphy rubbed his face. "If we let every sod who thinks he's sidekick material 'join the club,' we'd be up to our ears in fucking useless idiots."

Clare rolled her eyes. "I never said we'd _actually_ let him join the club. Do you really think I'm that stupid? He's probably trying to cash in somehow…but I can lead him into thinking that if he brings the right medical supplies, he might get a peek at the famous Saints of Boston."

"Let up a bit, will ye." Connor nudged at her hand on his shoulder. She eased up the pressure a bit, and he slowly sat up, pushing himself upright with his good arm.

"Easy, there, Conn," Murphy said, helping his twin lean back against the wall of the shed.

"So what's the plan?" Connor asked, sweat beading his forehead.

"I told him I might need a ride to a hotel later tonight. I'll call him, make sure he knows what to bring." Clare sat back on her heels, adjusting her grip on the bloody t-shirt against Connor's shoulder. "All we need to do is dangle the carrot…"

"…and he should follow right along like a good little donkey," Murphy finished.

"Ass. Like an ass," Connor corrected his brother, grinning at his own cleverness.

"I'm coming," Christian said. Clare began to protest and he held up a hand. "I don't want to hear it. You got all the credit for killing fourteen notorious gangsters. I can't let you have all the fun."

At that, Clare grinned, and they began to outline the details of the plan.


	15. An Amusing Druggie

**Hello all! Thanks so much for your amazing response to the last few updates! I will try to get back to each and every one of you individually, it may just take me a little while. (If you can't tell, I like playing in Troy Duffy's sandbox a little too much for my own good.) And, all together now, HAPPY ST PATRICKS DAY! At some point today I will be getting completely toasted in honor of the Burkeys from County Tipperary, my 19****th**** century Irish forebears. Cheers!**

Clare made a trip back to the house to retrieve her cell phone and an overnight bag, and she'd also checked the armoire where she kept her firearms. To her surprise, the police hadn't confiscated every single one of them, and she slipped two Berettas and a few clips of ammunition into the overnight bag, silently thanking the three detectives and Agent Smecker. The media van was still parked across the street, and there was still one of the unmarked police cars sitting by the curb in front of her house. She slipped back out to the shed, moving stealthily through the falling shadows.

Back in the shed, Connor was slipping in and out of a morphine-induced delirium, murmuring half-baked jokes to his twin every now and again, watching Clare and Christian move about with hazy eyes. Murphy had painfully shifted himself closer to his twin, listening to the bad jokes and answering in one or another language. Clare was sure she heard French, and Gaelic, and maybe Italian too.

"Christ, how many languages do you two know?" she asked after Murphy murmured in a tongue her ear couldn't place.

"Confidential information," Murphy answered cheekily. Connor chuckled a little loopily, staring up into the dark of the shed.

Clare shook her head and pulled out the card that the paramedic had given her. She held it close to the fluorescent light of the lamp, and dialed the number quickly, holding a finger to her lips.

"We're not fuckin' stupid," Murphy said in indignation. "When he picks up, we'll shut up."

She glared at him, holding the phone to her ear and clearing her throat.

"Hello?" came the voice from the other end of the line.

"Hello," she answered, making her voice quiver a little bit, "is this…is this Luke Donovan?"

She heard a sudden movement, like the paramedic had abruptly sat up in his chair. "Yes, ma'am, it is. Is this…Ms. McDonough, from earlier today?"

"Yes."

"What can I do for you, Ms. McDonough?"

"Well," she replied a little breathily, "I remembered that you said…you said you could help me. Give…me…a ride to a hotel."

Murphy watched her intently, his eyes gleaming in the half-darkness.

"Yes, of course," Donovan replied. "Do you need a ride for…just you?"

"Oh," Clare said, her voice wobbling, "I can't…they told me not to answer that." She lowered her voice to almost a whisper. "I also need…medical things. Do you think you could—borrow—some for me?"

"I can not only get the proper equipment, I can make sure that your _friends_ are taken care of, as well as they would be in a hospital," Donovan said, sounding smug and a little excited.

She felt the disdain twisting her mouth. So she took a breath, let it out slowly into the phone, composing herself. "Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Donovan. I really didn't know where else to turn…"

"Please. Call me Luke, Ms. McDonough. And I'm sure we'll be able to come to a mutual understanding regarding your friends. I'm glad you called me to help." His warm voice lowered to a purr of satisfaction. "Now, what do you need?"

"Two gunshot wounds, one to the upper left chest and one to the thigh. The chest is more serious, the thigh didn't seem to hit anything major." She heard the sound of crinkling paper, as if he were taking notes. "There's still a media van out front…"

"Of course. I'll meet you around back," Donovan said smoothly. "What's your street address again?"

She dutifully gave it to him, taking care to make her voice sound particularly young and vulnerable.

"I'll meet you the next street back—that's Porter, right?—at seven sharp," he said.

Clare checked her watch. It was a quarter past six. She glanced at Connor and Murphy. It was more time than she wanted them to have to spend without medical care, but she supposed it was the best they could do. Murphy gave her a slight nod.

"All right," she said into the phone, and then quickly hung up before the paramedic could say anything else. Looking down at the phone in her hand, she shuddered in disgust. "Ugh. The more I talk to him, the more he gives me the creeps."

"Ye shouldn't 'ave to deal w' creeps," said Connor from the floor, his words slightly slurred. "I'll take care o'…it…"

Murphy patted his brother on the head fondly. "Conn, ye're many things, my dear brother, but ye're a vastly amusin' druggie."

Clare chuckled softly. "Did you get the gist of that conversation?" she asked Murphy and Christian.

"Aye, ye created a very convincing carrot," Murphy replied.

"Carrots are fuckin' _orange_," Connor contributed, his voice the epitome of sensibility.

Clare clapped her hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking with mirth. Murphy caught her eye and bit his lip fiercely to keep from laughing.

"That they are, Conn," he said, patting his brother's head again.

"Such shining examples of intelligence and wit," Christian murmured to Clare, raising one eyebrow. She wiped tears from her eyes and tried not to snort as she gasped in a huge breath.

"What's so _funny_?" Connor demanded. "They _are. _Fucking carrots."

"Fucking carrots," Clare repeated, dissolving into a fit of giggles.

"Don't humor him," Murphy mock-reprimanded her.

"Sorry," she gasped. She straightened and cleared her throat. "Okay. Back to business." Unzipping the overnight bag, she handed one Beretta to Christian and loaded a clip into the other, checking the chamber and the safety before handing it to Murphy. "Only to be used if something goes crazily wrong," she told him.

He checked the chamber and safety again, working the slide a few times and admiring the smooth action. "What d'ye think we are, woman, wanton killers?" He merely grinned when she rolled her eyes.

"Intelligence and wit indeed," she said to Christian in a stage-murmur. Murphy snorted and pretended to look affronted, but after a moment he went back to admiring the handgun in his lap.

"Why don't I get a gun?" Connor asked with all the petulance of a five-year-old demanding his favorite toy.

"Because you're stoned off your ass," Christian told him.

"Ye would talk about my ass," Connor grumbled at Christian.

"I'm letting that one go, partly because you're high on morphine, but also because this shed isn't big enough for me to properly kick your ass," Christian told the Irishman.

"See? Again with the…" Connor trailed off as he forgot what he was saying. "Hm. D'ye think there's bats in here, Murph?"

"The fuck?" Murphy looked at his brother. "Even if ye're high off yer ass, Conn, that's just a fuckin' strange question."

"Just wondering," Connor said, smiling dreamily.

"I don't think I can handle much more of this," Clare muttered, checking her watch. "All right, Chris, we've got fifteen minutes. You sure you know enough Spanish to pull this off?"

Christian looked affronted. "I wouldn't say I did if I didn't."

"Just checking." She handed him the black ski mask she'd found in their winter-accessories bin in the hall closet. He took it and held it like a dead thing between his thumb and forefinger.

"Do I _really_ have to wear this?" he asked, lip curled in disdain. "I think it's _polyester_, and it's going to wreak havoc on my hair."

Murphy quirked his eyebrows. "And here I was thinkin' the seriousness of the situation chased the queer outta ye."

Christian rolled his eyes in response and said, "Please. Just because I'm not _saying _it doesn't mean I'm not _thinking_ it."

"Right," Murphy said slowly. "Remind me never to ask you what you're thinkin'."

"Can we please focus?" Clare demanded. "We're down to ten minutes."

"Right," Murphy said again, this time with a business-like air, "so when do we come into this plan?"

"You two are in no shape to participate in any plan whatsoever," she replied firmly.

Murphy scowled thunderously at her, but as he opened his mouth to argue Connor said loopily, "Are we still talkin' 'bout carrots?"

Murphy closed his mouth, glanced down at his twin and muttered, "Well, I guess someone has to look after his drugged-up ass."

"Congratulations," Christian said with an exaggerated, saccharine sweet smile. "You've finally said something that _actually_ makes sense."

"Shut up and put yer polyester ski mask on," Murphy retorted, but there was a spark of amusement in his eyes.

Christian stuck his tongue out at Murphy, then quickly sobered, checking the chamber and safety on his Beretta. "What do we do if he doesn't take the bait?"

Clare pressed her lip together. "You're just going to have to be very convincing, Chris. If convincing him means knocking him out, then…" She shrugged elegantly.

Christian grinned, his face completely transformed from the mocking sweetness of a moment before, his teeth gleaming with a feral glint in the half-light of the shed. He pulled the ski mask over his head and then pulled on black gloves, testing his grip on the Beretta with the gloves on. Clare took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a bare moment, and when she opened them, she glanced at Murphy, gave him a curt nod and stood.

"You have my cell phone number," she said. "If we're not back in forty minutes, call Smecker."

"Ye'll be back," Murphy said firmly, holding her eyes for a second. She looked down at Connor—his eyes were closed, and he was so pale—and then she turned to the shed door.

A cool breeze slipped over her skin as she stepped out into the back yard. Christian gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and then melted away into the shadows, moving noiselessly away to his position. Clare set off across the remainder of her yard, sliding over the low white fence that separated her yard from the property directly behind it. Keeping to the shadows, she glided toward the brightly lit street, pulse pounding in her throat. To her relief, the owners of the house didn't seem to be home, and she slipped through their yard without incident.

The street lights seemed bright and tawdry after the glow of the camping lantern and the soft silk of the evening shadows. She took out her cell phone and glanced up and down the street. Across the street, a middle-aged man taking out the garbage paused, looking at her intently. She gave him a neighborly wave, and he smiled and waved back. Then her phone vibrated, and she jumped a little.

"Easy," she murmured to herself, holding the phone up to her ear. "Hello?"

"It's Luke. We're in the dark blue SUV, parked at the corner of the block."

"I thought you were going to be coming alone," she said, walking quickly toward the end of the street.

"Well," the paramedic said, a crafty note entering his voice, "I can't be expected to perform these services for free, Clare."

She sighted the vehicle, parked at the end of the street, motor shut off, a good distance from the nearest street lamp. It wasn't total darkness, but it wasn't harsh illumination, and the yard bordering the sidewalk boasted a thick clump of bushes. Perfect. She had to stop herself from grinning; the setup couldn't have been nicer if she'd planned it herself. "I…I don't understand," she said into the phone, voice quavering. "You said…you said you would help…us…I mean me…"

"And I will," Donovan purred into the phone. "I just need you to meet me with _them_, just like we planned."

"I'm almost to the car," Clare said. She hung up the phone and shoved her hands in her pockets, doing her best to look very young and very vulnerable as she walked quickly toward the car. Hunching her shoulders, she glanced around furtively, and caught a slight movement in the darkest shadows right across from the blue SUV. She forced herself not to look harder, and increased her pace.

Donovan slid out of the driver's seat as she approached. He wasn't wearing his uniform. A stranger got out of the passenger side, a pudgy man with an oily look that Clare didn't like at all. But she walked right up to them. "I'm here," she said, widening her eyes just a bit. "Did you bring the equipment?"

"It's all in the car," Donovan said impatiently, looking over her shoulder. "Where are they?"

"Where are who?" She gazed up at him innocently, furrowing her brows.

The pudgy man glanced at Donovan unhappily.

Donovan stepped closer to her. "The _Saints_," he said. "I _know_ you're covering for them. You said as much on the phone! And you said they'd meet me here!"

"I never said anyone but me was meeting you," Clare answered in a wounded and confused voice. "I don't understand why you're so angry."

"Donovan," said the pudgy man in a low voice, "you said you could get me an exclusive."

Clare stepped back, her head jerking up in surprise. "A _reporter_?" she said accusingly.

"A friend," Donovan snapped, glaring at the pudgy man. He looked stormily at Clare. "Like I said, I en't just doin' this outta the goodness of 'me ol' Irish heart.'" He spoke the last phrase in an exaggerated accent, smiling nastily.

Any minute now, Christian, Clare thought to herself. Out loud she said, "I thought I could trust you."

"Oh, right, public servant and all," Donovan grinned. "Sorry, but you can bet your sweet ass that half the cops in the precinct are takin' some kind of bribe on any given day."

"But you're not a cop," she said.

"Of course I'm not a—" Donovan started, but a strong arm snaked around his neck and tightened, choking off his words.

Clare stumbled backward into the SUV as the man in the ski mask pointed a gun at her, then swung the muzzle to aim at the pudgy man, who blanched in terror. He growled something in Spanish into Donovan's ear. Donovan tried to fight, but the masked man shoved him to the side and then hit him with the pistol, hard. Yanking the paramedic back to his feet, the masked gunman pointed the weapon at Clare. She leaned against the SUV and whimpered. The gunman growled at her in Spanish; she threw up her hands and quavered, "I—I don't—I don't understand—"

"You the bitch who killed _mis hermanos_?" the gunman demanded. He pressed the muzzle of the gun to Donovan's head.

"I didn't sign up for this," sniveled the pudgy reporter when the gunman turned the weapon on him, still holding Donovan in a chokehold.

"Then _vamanos,_ and if you even try to go to the _policia_ or write anything in your newspaper, I will find you, and I will kill you," growled the gunman menacingly, his words rolling with a Spanish accent.

"Fine! Fine, man, I'm going!" The reporter turned and literally ran. Donovan made a strangled sound of protest, but the reporter didn't look back.

"And you," said the gunman, "should I kill you, for trying to help the bitch that killed my brothers, eh?"

Donovan's eyes rolled in terror and he looked to Clare for help. She slid down the car until she was sitting on the sidewalk, her face terrified, eyes glistening with tears.

"I knew they would find me," she sobbed. "I knew it…"

"Shut up, bitch," the gunman snarled, tightening his hold on Donovan. "So what is it, boy, eh? Do I kill you here or do I let you go? You gonna run to the _policia_?"

Donovan shook his head as much as he could with his neck in the gunman's grip. There were tears streaming down his face, and snot running from his nose—he made a very ignoble picture, and for a moment Clare almost felt sorry for him. But then she thought of Connor and pushed her pity away. She stood shakily and said, "Please, let him go! Just…take me, please. I know you're going to take me anyway." She hiccupped back a sob.

"Give her the keys to your car," the gunman growled at Donovan. When Donovan took too long fumbling them out of his pocket, he hit him again. When the keys dropped to the pavement, he motioned at Clare with the gun. "Pick them up, bitch."

Clare bit her lip and picked up the keys.

"Get in the car. Open the back door and then get in the front." The gunman motioned with the muzzle of the handgun. He released his chokehold on Donovan, gripping the man instead by the hair and pressing the gun hard into the tender spot beneath his jaw. "You breathe even a word of this, you say you know what happened when the bitch's body is found, you tell any of the cops or even your _amigo_ who ran away like a little bitch, I find you." He pressed the gun even harder into Donovan's flesh, eliciting a piteous cry from the young man. "And you know what happens when I find you? I kill you." The gunman hit him one more time, hard enough to knock him out, and then dragged the unconscious man into the darkness of the bushes.

Clare turned the key in the ignition as the gunman hopped into the back seat. The SUV's engine roared to life, the back door slammed shut and she pressed down on the gas, pulling a sharp U-turn and heading down the street.

Once they turned the corner, she said, "Did you have to call me a bitch so many times?"

Christian pulled off the ski mask and fastidiously checked his hair in the mirror. "I was going for authenticity, my dear."

Clare grinned and rolled her eyes. "If I hadn't know it was you, Chris, I would've probably been scared."

Christian made a sound of derision. "You would've waited for an opening and then you would've owned my ass, and you know it. I would've been trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey with my own gun pointed at me."

She chuckled. "You sell yourself short, Chris." She flicked off the headlights as they neared the house. No media, no Duffy or any other cop. She breathed out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "What's the haul?"

Christian rummaged in the back seat. "Looks like we hit the jackpot. The guy was a manipulative douche, but he knew his first aid. We've got sterile saline IVs, a suture kit, there's a cooler back here too, might even have some real blood—"

"Hold on," said Clare as they neared the end of the driveway. She winced as the SUV rolled over the rosebushes bordering the driveway. "We have to do this quick." She hit the gas and the SUV bounced through the back yard, sliding to a stop in the grass right in front of the shed.

"Stay in the car," Christian said, opening his door quickly. He opened the shed by the glow of the car's interior light. "The queer is here!" he sang out softly yet devilishly as he opened the door.

Clare scanned the darkness of her yard anxiously as she waited for Christian, Connor and Murphy. Although she'd known the gunman was Christian—and she'd done a damn good job acting, if she said so herself—she didn't have to stretch her imagination to think that the Lobos would be gunning for her. She rubbed her arms and tried unsuccessfully to suppress the goosebumps racing across her skin. They would be gunning for her, and if they found her again, she wouldn't be fighting on home turf. She harbored no illusions about how that would shift the odds.

Movement from the shed snapped her out of her reverie. Christian and Murphy emerged with Connor between them. The taller twin's face was ghastly pale, and after a few game steps his head lolled as he went limp. Murphy cursed as his injured leg buckled. Clare threw open the door and skidded over to him. He fell heavily onto her, and a lance of pain informed her that she'd caught him with her injured arm.

"Sorry," he gasped—he knew it, too. "Damn leg."

"Just get in the car," she gritted out in reply. "Chris, are you driving or am I?"

"Can you use your arm well?" Christian asked, situating Connor carefully on the back seat. He was still completely unconscious. His stillness worried Clare, almost as much as the dark stain of blood soaking through the makeshift bandage on his shoulder. Murphy used her for support and grabbed the door of the car, his grip white-knuckled as he pulled himself up onto the back seat next to his brother. Christian darted back into the shed and threw the overnight bag past Clare into the passenger seat.

"Not well enough," Clare replied. Checking to make sure that all the men's extremities were safely tucked in the car, she shut the back door as quietly as she could and climbed back into the driver's seat. After navigating a tricky three-point turn and crushing more rosebushes, she pulled the SUV out into the street. Christian had started working in the back seat immediately. "Are you getting a saline drip going into him?" she asked as she turned the corner. "There should be a blood pressure cuff there, make sure his pressure isn't too low. And—"

"Clare," Christian interrupted firmly. "Please focus on the road. I'm not buckled in back here so it would be tragic if this beautiful face were scarred from an accident."

She took a deep breath. "All right. Then someone has to give me directions, because I don't know where the hell we're going."

If she thought about it right, that was a great metaphor for her whole damn day. Her whole damn week. And as she drove the stolen SUV through Boston's streets in the dark of night, two wounded vigilantes and one gay best friend in tow, she wondered how in the world she was ever going to settle for anything less than a death-defying, wise-cracking, sexy, all-around infuriating man.


	16. Donuts and Gunshot Wounds

**Hello everyone! I know it's been a while since I've updated. In my defense, I'm on deployment, out somewhere on the ocean...I finally managed to carve out a bit of time to come back to poor Connor and Murphy. (Evil grin). So I hope you enjoy the update...let me know what you think, and the next will be on the way as soon as I can manage.**

**On an un-Boondock-Saints-related note, but of interest, if you enjoy my writing, feel free to check out my first novel, _The Iron Sword, _published by Three Ravens books and available on both the Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites. :) If you have any questions or comments about it feel free to PM me!**

**And with no further ado...I present to you our bloodied yet still devilishly handsome Irish twins...**

"How's he doing, Chris?" Clare asked, trying to keep the note of anxiety out of her voice and only partially succeeding. The headlights of opposing traffic were gaudy, too bright after the fire and blood of her basement, the clinical cleanliness of the crime-scene technicians, the hazy dark of the shed in her back yard, lit by the soft glow of the camping lantern. She fought to keep her grip on the wheel steady, her face unconcerned despite her instinct to duck and cover at every flashing light and blaring horn. Taking a deep breath, she made herself let it go slowly, counting to five.

"Blood pressure's low," Christian informed her from the back seat. "His skin is getting clammy. He's going into shock."

"That's no wonder," she replied over the terrible twisting feeling in her chest. Her arm throbbed. Blood slipped down into the crook of her elbow, a small snake of crimson sliding over her skin. She heard Murpy talking to Connor softly. At the next red light, she kept her foot firmly on the brakes and glanced back over her shoulder. They had Connor stretched over the length of the back seat, his head in Murphy's lap and Christian kneeling by his side with the bags of medical supplies opened and the contents strewn haphazardly on the floor of the SUV. Even in the dark, she could tell that there was a blue tinge to Connor's lips, a gray pallor to his skin, and blood still leaking in a slow but steady stream from the bullet wound in his shoulder. "Dammit," she swore softly, swallowing hard against the panic rising in the back of her throat. She took another deep breath. This isn't the same as last time, she told herself. This is different. This _will_ be different.

The light turned green. She jumped as the car behind her honked its horn impatiently. A dirty, blood-stained hand squeezed her shoulder. "Easy now," said Murphy softly from the back seat.

"When's my next turn?" she replied tersely. They were downtown, more into the seedier part of Boston than she had been in a long while, but she supposed that these were the true hunting grounds of the Boondock Saints. Her home had been destroyed, ravaged by the Lobos and then taped off by bright yellow police caution tape, so she had little choice but to rely on the brothers—or Murphy, rather, she corrected herself with a grimace.

"The street just after The Pink Cat," Murphy replied.

Clare raised her eyebrows. "The strip club?"

"Well, wi' a name like that, it might be more than a strip club," Murphy replied with an attempt at a cheeky grin. Then the SUV hit a pothole, Connor gave a strangled moan of anguish and the dark-haired twin's focus was completely absorbed by his brother. "Canna you give him anymore?" he asked Christian almost pleadingly, brushing Connor's hair back from his forehead in an uncharacteristic display of tenderness. Connor quieted at his brother's touch, his breathing harsh in the silence.

"I can't," Christian answered. "If I give him too much painkiller, he'll go into cardiac arrest, Murphy. With the blood loss, I don't know whether we'd be able to get him back."

Murphy said nothing, hunching his shoulders slightly and leaning over Connor as if he could protect his twin from the pain.

"Do you have a saline drip going?" Clare asked.

"Yes," replied Christian.

The road clogged with traffic as the SUV rolled past a series of neon-bright strip clubs, booming bass leaking out onto the streets, slicking the sidewalk beneath the feet of the clubs' myriad customers: olive-skinned men in sharply tailored suits, middle-aged hacks with pot bellies and bald spots, groups of young men out for a rowdy time for one reason or another. After a quick glance Clare kept her eyes forward, breathing slow and deep. She was wound tight with tension, alert to any chance of discovery. The traffic rolled along at a snail's pace, doors opening and closing as friends dropped off their drunken companions to stagger from the cars and to one or another of the neon lit entryways.

Finally, Murphy said, "Here."

Clare turned the wheel of the car almost gratefully, glad to be out of the tight confines of traffic and the blaring of the strip club signs, the drunken loudness of their customers. They had turned onto a smaller side street, but there was still more room to maneuver than on the crowded main street. There were a few other cars on the road. Clare relaxed her grip on the steering wheel slightly. After a few blocks, the landscape of the street started changing from pawn shops and liquor stores to apartments, row houses three stories high all crowded together on either side of the street. Most of them were in relatively good repair but every so often there was an eyesore, with peeling paint and hanging shutters, cracked windows that hadn't been replaced.

"Don't tell me we're going to a house like that," Clare said in trepidation as they passed one such house. Three young people in hooded sweatshirts smoked something that definitely wasn't cigarettes or even weed, lounging on the dilapidated front porch with fold-out metal chairs. They glared sullenly at the SUV as it passed.

"It's a safe house," Murphy replied with uncharacteristic gravity. "Only one person knows where it is, and what it's for."

"And who's that?" She glided to a gentle stop at an intersection, glancing back over her shoulder.

"It might be better if you don't know."

"If I _don't know_?" she repeated caustically, raising one eyebrow. "I _know_ pretty much everything. What's one more piece of information?"

Murphy opened his mouth to reply, then shut it and reconsidered. Instead he gave a one-shouldered shrug. Christian tightened the blood pressure cuff around Connor's upper arm.

"Hold this," he said to Murphy, handing him a small flashlight. Murphy silently obeyed, watching with hungry eyes as the needle quivered, pulsing with his twin's heartbeat.

"What? What is it?" he demanded as Christian's mouth tightened and he began rifling through the medical supplies again.

"His blood pressure is dangerously low, Murphy," Christian replied tersely. "From blood loss and shock. If it gets much lower, he could go into respiratory arrest, or cardiac arrest, or the blood flow to his brain could be restricted—"

"In other words," Clare interrupted, "he'll stop breathing, his heart will stop beating, and if we can get him back from that, he might be brain damaged. He might not be the same Connor."

She heard a sharp intake of breath from Murphy, and another.

"He'll always be Connor," she heard him say thickly, fighting to get the words out. "He'll always be m'brother."

Her throat tightened. She cleared it. "Which house is it?"

Murphy coughed and took another shuddering breath. "2165B. Pull in the driveway, the entrance is at the back."

After only another minute or so of driving and carefully scanning the mailboxes for the correct house number, Clare flicked on her blinker in triumph and turned into the narrow gravel driveway. Thick unkempt bushes obscured the driveway from view, and once they rounded a slight bend, squeezing between the back of the house and the row house behind it, they were all but invisible from the street. She hoped that would be enough as she put the SUV in park, threw on the emergency brake and slid out of the front seat. Murphy opened the back door for her. He gently laid his brother's head on the seat and took out the Beretta from where he'd tucked it in his waistband, grimacing slightly as he moved his injured leg. He overbalanced as he was climbing out of the SUV and cursed, anticipating the fall, but Clare was suddenly beside him, her hand gripping his upper arm firmly. Regaining his balance, he gave her a curt nod and adjusted his grip on the pistol.

"Gonna go clear it," he told her. The words _even though it is supposed to be a safe house_ went unspoken. They both understood the fluidity of loyalty, the fickleness of fate. The cruelty of chance.

"Let me see your leg first," she said, her grip on his arm unyielding. He mumbled a few curses under his breath but leaned back against the SUV, gripping the gun and scanning the shadows around the house.

"'S not that…" He swayed suddenly as she tightened the bloodied makeshift bandage, putting one hand against the SUV behind him for balance. "…Bad," he finished shakily. "Christ, woman, why d'ye have to go pokin' about?"

"Because you insist on walking on it and now it won't bleed as much," she replied. Raising her voice slightly, she said, "Chris, go with Murphy? He says it's not bad but he'll probably pass out at some point." She levied a stare at Murphy, daring him to rebuff her assertion. To her surprise, he nodded slightly.

Christian slid out of the SUV, checking the safety on his own weapon. "I'll be back as soon as I can," he told her, pulling her into a one-armed hug and planting a brotherly kiss on her forehead. "Talk to him. He likes you. Maybe he'll listen to you."

"Connor never listens to anyone," Murphy retorted. "Not even his own brother."

Clare listened to their quiet banter as she climbed back into the SUV. Her small smile died on her lips as she surveyed Connor. She pulled the car door shut and locked it, turning off the overhead light and turning on the camp lantern that Christian had set by the medical kit. Her own weapon pressed comfortingly against her side in the hidden holster she'd had custom-made. Christian had cut away the shoulder of Connor's shirt and applied a field dressing to the bullet wound, but the white bandages were dark with blood. An IV line snaked from his wrist to a bag filled with clear fluid, jerry-rigged to the headrest of the back seat in the absence of an IV stand. She pressed two fingers to the tender spot below his jaw. His pulse was weak and thready, and as she leaned over him she could tell it was getting hard for him to breathe.

"This is all too familiar, Connor," she told him as she found an oxygen mask in the supply kit and ripped its cover off, holding it gently over his mouth and nose. She didn't know if it was a trick of the shadows, but after a moment it looked like his color was a little better. She leaned in closer over him, pressing her palm to his forehead softly. He was still clammy, a cold sweat dampening his skin. As she took her hand away, he shivered, slowly opening his eyes. "Hey," she said softly. He made a small sound of pain, forehead creasing; and then he tried to reach up for the oxygen mask. She moved it to the side.

"Where..?" he rasped through dry lips.

"Somewhere safe," she murmured. "We're still in the car. Murphy and Christian went to go make sure everything is in order."

His eyes gazed hazily into hers for a moment, and then he blinked. "'M cold, Clare," he whispered as another shiver ran through his body.

"It's from the shock," she said softly, brushing his hair back from his forehead. He leaned into her hand.

"Ye're warm," he said, voice barely more than a whisper. Another, more violent tremor traveled through his body and she watched helplessly as the pain flashed across his face. He tried so hard to hide it. She laid her hand against his cheek.

"You should stop talking for a bit," she told him. "I'll put the mask back on, but I'm just going to hold it there. No elastic or anything."

He shivered and nodded wearily, eyes half-closed as he leaned into the warmth of her hand. She swallowed hard against the tightness in her throat. Connor's shivering began to look more like tremors, his legs twitching involuntarily. His breath hitched as the tremors reached his torso, his good hand clenching and unclenching against the car seat.

"Hold on," Clare said. "Stay still." She balanced the mask on his face carefully and half-stood, crouching over him in the confines of the SUV. Looking into the trunk of the SUV, she triumphantly grabbed an ugly green and brown patterned blanket, bundling it carefully over the back seat and arranging it over Connor from the waist down. It was large enough to fold double and tuck around him. She sat back on her heels, one hand still holding the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, watching closely to see if the blanket did any good. His shivering continued unabated, his hand still clenching and unclenching spasmodically. She pushed away the sinking feeling in her chest, instead slipping her free hand into his. His fingers closed over hers in a vise-like grip, and she bit her lip, watching as his breath fogged the plastic of the oxygen mask in quick spurts. "Breathe a little more slowly for me, if you can," she said. He clutched her hand like he was a drowning man and she was offering him her hand from a lifeboat.

"How's the pain?" she asked, even though it was a moronic question. She could see it written all over his face. But he took a deep breath and she moved the mask to the side.

"Hurts more…than it should," he rasped. "Not a simple…through and through."

"There's no exit wound," she agreed quietly. Where the hell were Murphy and Christian? They needed to hurry up with their damn SWAT-team wanna-be room clearing and get their asses back out to the car, she thought.

Connor grimaced as another tremor wracked his body, squeezing her hand so hard that she thought it was going to break. When it passed, he took another breath. "Prob'ly nicked…collarbone…or m'shoulder blade, in back…"

"You're more of an expert on gunshot wounds than I am," she replied, teasing him gently.

"Comes with…th'territory…of bein' so…damn sexy," he managed, looking proud of himself at the end of the sentence despite the sweat lacing his brow and the raggedness of his breathing.

Clare raised one eyebrow. "Well. I would rather being an expert on gunshot wounds _not_ be a requirement for you to be sexy."

"You agreein'…with me, woman?" The ghost of a grin flickered across Connor's grey face.

"Don't call me woman," she told him, mock-chastising. And then she leaned over him, letting her lips brush his cheek as she said, "And yes, I'm agreeing with you."

He turned his head and met her whispering mouth with his, cutting off anything else she intended to say. She could taste his pain on his lips, but all the same she kissed him thoroughly. Connor made a small sound—not pain, she realized in the back of her mind, the part of her mind not consumed by the white fire racing through her veins, but contentment. She sat back, satisfied, slipping the mask over his face again. He closed his eyes, a smile visible through the plastic of the mask.

A brisk knock on the window made Clare's heart jump like a frightened rabbit. She looked sharply at the window, but it was Christian, his face barely visible in the ambient light from the moon and the faraway street lamps. Reaching across, she unlocked the door.

"How long have you been watching?" she demanded suspiciously as soon as he opened the door.

"Long enough," he replied, a devilish glint to his eyes. Then he sobered. "It's clear, but Murphy couldn't make it back down the stairs." He rolled his eyes. "Or…rather, he _thought_ he could make it down the stairs and tried, like the stubborn ass he is. And then I had to carry him halfway back up."

"I'm sure he absolutely _loved_ that," Clare commented.

"He was half-conscious, Clare," Christian said, the strain of the day and now the night ahead of them showing in his brusque tone. "But he's in better shape than Connor."

"Can you carry him?"

"I'll manage," Christian replied, "if you can get the bags."

Clare nodded and gently disentangled her hand from Connor's. He watched her with glassy half-lidded eyes as she quickly organized their medical supplies and shut off the camp lantern, throwing it into the overnight bag and zipping it up with an air of efficiency. She leaned over him and untied the IV bag from the back seat's headrest, making sure the keep the line clear and the saline still flowing. Christian reached over and took the saline bag from her, keeping it elevated while she slipped out of the car and dragged the overnight bag and the medical bag from the back seat. The medical bag was a lot heavier than it looked and at first she didn't know whether she could handle it. But she reminded herself that she only had a scratch on the arm, and both the twins would probably need everything in that medical bag. That stiffened her resolve.

"Help me with his feet," Christian said.

Clare stopped and surveyed the setup. "We should just take the IV out," she offered. "If it gets caught on something, it'll hurt like a bitch. We have more, don't we?"

"Yes," said Christian. "Hold this." They switched places, and Christian expertly drew the long, wicked needle from Connor's wrist, holding pressure over it for a moment until the blood clotted. Connor didn't make a sound. Clare put the saline bag to one side. Christian took the mask and stretched its elastic over the back of Connor's head.

"He doesn't like that," Clare protested quietly.

"He's unconscious," replied Christian tersely.

Wordlessly, Clare walked around the front of the SUV and opened the other door, climbing into the back seat again. "Connor," she said, "if you can hear me, we're going to get you inside. Christian is going to carry you. It's going to hurt, but I need you to stay still as much as you can, all right?" She didn't expect a response, but to her surprise, Connor raised his uninjured hand and gave a shaky thumbs-up sign. She couldn't help but grin.

"Smartass," Christian said from the other side of the car. Connor's eyes opened a little at the sound of his voice, and he raised his eyebrows at Clare as he transitioned from a thumbs-up to a middle finger, turning his hand so that the bird was directed at Christian. "I hope you're this chipper once we get you inside," Christian said, and Connor didn't have a response for that. He let his hand fall to his side.

"All right, enough teasing," Clare said, watching in concern as shivers rippled through Connor's prone form. The night air certainly wasn't helping things. She tucked the ugly green-and-brown blanket firmly under his legs.

"I can…help," said Connor suddenly, words muffled by the mask.

Clare looked at Christian, who shrugged. "Okay. Then we'll help you sit up, and you can slide out of the car. We'll see how it works from there."

Connor nodded. Christian leaned in, sliding his arm beneath Connor's back on the uninjured side. Clare grasped Connor's legs. "Ready?" Connor nodded again. With Christian at his back and Clare rotating his legs, Connor managed to push himself into a sitting position, a strangled sound somewhere between a grunt and a moan escaping him. His chest was heaving and sweat rolled down his face, which was even grayer than it had been.

"He's not going to be able to stand up at all. It'll do more damage than good," Christian said, moving to shift Connor. The Irishman, despite his pallor, put out his good arm and gripped Christian's shirt, shaking his head slightly.

"This isn't about your pride, Connor," Christian retorted. "It's about your life. You can damn well take a blow to your ego if that means keeping you alive."

Clare watched the exchange tensely. Finally Connor relaxed his grip on Christian's shirt. Christian leaned forward, put one arm under Connor's knees and positioned the other by his side. "Ready? This is going to hurt like a motherfucker."

"Ready as…I'll ever be," Connor replied.

In one smooth motion, Christian slid his right arm behind Connor's shoulder and his left arm beneath the other man's knees. He carefully moved him to the edge of the car seat, and then with seemingly little effort, lifted him. Clare shut the car doors hurriedly and locked them, slipping the keys into her pocket. She arranged the straps of the medical kit and the overnight bag on her good shoulder and heaved them up, following Christian quickly.

Christian strode toward the house purposefully. It took an effort to catch up to him. She saw dark droplets falling from Connor's fingers, splotching the sparse grass of the unkempt lawn. "He's bleeding again," she told Christian urgently.

"I know," Christian said. "I'm going as fast as I can, unless you'd like me to drop him and see where that leaves us."

She scowled at Christian, despite the fact that he probably couldn't see her expression in the dark, and darted ahead to hold the door open. There was a patched screen door, then a pleasingly heavy, solid back door. Christian turned sideways and carefully carried Connor through. The interior of the house was dark, but Christian headed unerringly for a set of stairs to the left. There was another heavy door at the top of the stairs. Clare opened it, waited for them to go through and then shut and locked it behind them, relishing the feel of the deadbolt driving home.

Clare stopped when she turned to the room. From the outside, it was a shabby eyesore, shrubbery overgrown, lawn unkempt, paint peeling in patches from the shutters. But the inside…at least the upstairs…she raised her eyebrows. It was one large room, subdivided with a counter separating the kitchen nook from the main room, and a sleek black screen shielding two full-size beds from view. A modest but serviceable television set rested on an entertainment center that was well-stocked with DVDs. A black couch faced the TV.

The windows, though, were what made Clare feel the safest. They had heavy blinds, which were drawn, and shutters on the inside that looked like they were lined with some sort of bulletproof material. The blinds looked light-proof, so the building would still seem deserted. She had to admire the ingenuity of it.

The covers had been ripped hastily from both beds, leaving only the black sheets beneath. Whoever had furnished the apartment, Clare thought, knew how to decorate around bloodstains. Murphy occupied one of the beds, and he pushed himself onto his elbows as Christian crossed the room with Connor. Christian carefully laid the unconscious twin on the empty bed, the green and brown blanket still tucked around his legs. At some point on the trip from the car to the bed, Connor had passed out. Clare supposed they should be grateful. She checked the deadbolt on the door again and then lugged the overnight bag and medical kit across the room, grimacing slightly as the graze on her arm throbbed. She set the medical bag down by the foot of Connor's bed, and the overnight bag beside it.

Murphy watched her as she glanced around the room again. "There're perks to knowin' an FBI agent," he told her with an air of satisfaction.

"I'm starting another saline drip," Christian told her, elbow-deep in the medical kit.

She nodded, feeling oddly numb. "I'm going to close the shutters," she heard herself say as if from a distance. The shutters were heavy. Sharp pain lanced through her upper arm as she closed the first set, but the feeling of drawing another bolt, putting up another defense, was enough to drown out the discomfort. After all three windows were shuttered and locked, she turned around and drifted back toward the beds, as if in a dream.

Christian took one glance at her and quickly finished rigging the saline bag to the bedpost. "Clare, sit down," he said.

She blinked. It sounded as though he was underwater. Were they underwater? Why was everything so…slow? She shivered. Then Christian's hands were on her shoulders, guiding her over to the bed, where Murphy had shifted to one side to give her room. He sat her firmly on the edge of the bed. She blinked dreamily, only half-feeling Christian push up her sleeve and inspect the graze on her arm. He applied something that stung. She didn't even move, watching instead the fog on the oxygen mask from Connor's breathing, the shallow rise and fall of his bandage-swathed chest. Christian finished bandaging her arm and then disappeared for a moment, returning with a Kit-Kat bar in his hand.

"The fridge and cabinets are stocked," he told Murphy with a note of suspicion in his voice. "Have you been here before?"

"Nah," replied Murphy, "but they knew we were goin' to, after the scene at the house."

"Impressive," Christian murmured, only half sarcastic. He brandished the red-wrapped candy bar at Clare. "Eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"I don't care if you're not hungry. Just because you weren't shot in the chest doesn't mean you can't go into shock, too."

She looked at him sharply and snatched the candy bar from his hand, eyes flashing.

"I didn't mean anything by it," he told her gently, putting a hand on her uninjured shoulder. "I know you're worried." His eyes glimmered devilishly. "And you know that when you're worried, it always falls to me to take care of you. So." He took the candy bar back from her and opened it, peeling back the wrapper. "Here. Sugary goodness."

Clare broke off one of the chocolate sticks and bit into it. At first her motions were mechanical, but as the chocolate melted in her mouth, her stomach growled and she realized how truly hungry and tired she was. She heard Murphy shift behind her, and she broke off a second stick, passing it over her shoulder to him without a word. He took it and munched on it happily, one eye always on Connor.

"Oh," said Murphy, "by t'way, we might be expectin' guests soon."

"Guests?" Clare turned to him skeptically.

"Of the FBI agent persuasion," he replied.

And as if on cue, there came a knock at the door. All the same, Clare wiped her fingers on the edge of her shirt and drew her pistol, walking toward the door on cat-quiet feet. The knock came again, and then the sound of a key in the lock. She pressed herself against the wall, pistol aimed at the door so that as soon as it opened she would have the person entering the room in her sights. Her thumb poised to flick off the safety, she adjusted her stance and then settled, waiting.

The door swung open slightly and a hand ventured through, holding a badge. Clare edged closer and peered at it. Then she lowered her gun and pushed the door open the rest of the way with her foot. Agent Smecker stood in the doorway, smile slowly uncoiling across his face. "Miss McDonough. I had a feeling you'd be guarding this little nest." His eyes flickered to her gun and then back to her face. "Now, please don't be alarmed, but I brought a companion."

She tensed at that, and almost brought up the gun again. "Who?"

"Someone discreet," he answered simply. "After that majestic work of art in your basement, I knew there would be damage. Of the potentially fatal kind, am I right?" He glanced around her, back to the beds that were concealed from view.

Clare grudgingly nodded.

"Oh, I love it when I'm such a good guesser." Smecker gave that gremlin-like smile again, and motioned with one hand. A lanky middle-aged man with a sweep of nondescript brown hair stepped up behind the FBI agent. "This is the good doctor. No names need be exchanged. He has worked for the agency before, when our undercover agents have gotten into tight spots." Smecker raised one eyebrow slightly at the words "undercover agents."

"Of course," Clare said, relief flooding through her in a dizzy rush. "We did the best we could, but…"

"If you let us in, my dear, we can help," Agent Smecker said, cutting her off. He raised a bag in his hand that she hadn't noticed before. "And I brought donuts. It's going to be a regular party."

She stepped aside and held the door as the FBI agent and doctor strode into the room, shutting it and locking it firmly behind them. "Yeah, donuts and gunshot wounds. Every girl's idea of a great party," she muttered as she followed them across the room; but her voice was soft with relief, and she let herself hope that maybe, just maybe, they would come out all right after all.


End file.
